


Arras (part 1)

by Annevar44



Series: Arras:  Honest Men [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Intrigue, M/M, Madeleine Era, Rough Sex, Toulon Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:20:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 28,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annevar44/pseuds/Annevar44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert and Madeleine both have their secrets.  On the eve of Champmathieu's trial they find something in each other - but the long shadow of the Bagne looms over them both, and it could be that neither man knows the other as well as he believes.  More than twenty years ago, both their lives were shattered on a cold spring morning at Toulon.  And what is buried is not forgotten.</p><p>Evolving relationship; emotional torment; repressed desires set free; case-fic; revelations and betrayals; three-part saga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. vendredi

_Montreuil-sur-mer, 1823_

.

“You say you wish to be replaced--”

“Dismissed,” Javert said. 

Javert prayed for only one thing: that M. Madeleine would would make a quick end of him. He could not tolerate the humiliation of mercy and forgiveness, and he dreaded a drawn-out protest from the mayor in which he would be forced to argue for his own disgrace. 

He was not sure his prayer would be answered. The mayor was now regarding him with his customary expression of calm good humor. Javert, of course, had not missed the fleeting looks that had shown earlier. There had been that familiar flash of loathing when M. Madeleine recognized his inspector at the door. There had been an appalled shudder as he heard Javert's confession. But now the face was smooth and showed only solicitous concern. 

Javert had never been fooled by his superior's careful expressions and polite manners. For a long time, he had understood that the mayor despised him. Until recently, he had believed the mayor's hatred was the kind every deceiver felt for an honest bloodhound on his trail. Only after the chastising letter arrived from Paris did he understand the truth: the mayor, a man of honor, had seen through to Javert's soul even while Javert himself had been deluded. M. Madeleine had sensed the rot in him.

After so many years of upright service, he had come to a shameful end. He had been shocked to get the letter from Paris. And yet, it was not such a surprise, was it? The thing that appalled him most - the terrible truth that struck him dumb with horror - was the familiarity of his position. This was not the first time he had stood like this before a superior.

When it happened before, he had been a much younger man in a different uniform, facing a different man across a broad, forbidding desk. It had been a mild spring morning at Toulon. He had gone to Captain Joire's office as soon as the sun was decently up, clutching the letter he had written and rewritten through the long night. In the corridor outside, he had paused to steady himself because his knees were close to buckling. He had taken a breath and drawn himself rigidly upright. Entering, he had said nothing, but simply held out the fatal paper with a shaking hand. The captain of the guards had taken it from him with a cool expression and barely glanced at it before setting it aside.

"Very well," Captain Joire had said. "Very well, Javert." 

Those were the only words spoken by either of them. The captain did not rise, and offered no word of farewell or regret. Javert had hesitated. In his torment he had nearly begun sobbing and babbling out an explanation or a plea for understanding. But no explanation was possible and Captain Joire's face was hard. And so Javert had said nothing. And scarcely an hour later, he had gone out through Toulon's main gate, dressed now in the civilian clothes that he had worn on the coach from Paris less than a year before. The crisp blue uniform he had loved was left behind, folded perfectly on the bed in the tiny quarters that were no longer his, on the second floor of the guards' dormitory. He had turned in his cudgel and pistol at the armory after cleaning them one last time - so that he was aware, walking across the yard, of the lightness at his hip. 

Outside the armory he'd come upon Natellier. The round-faced guard was off-duty and lounged on a bench with his feet up. The sight of him tore open a terrible hollow place in Javert's chest. Natellier, with his amicable chatter and his easy grin, had been the first to make him feel welcome at the bagne. Natellier had once been, almost, his friend. He wanted to say goodbye and carry one last decent memory away from this place. But Natellier's lips curved in a sneer and he looked pointedly away.

So Javert had walked on. A handful of guards were loitering in the yard, and as he waited for the tall iron gates to open and expel him forever, he could feel their hostile stares. Someone had called out a jeer; someone had laughed. He had looked straight ahead to avoid meeting their eyes.

Sick from the memory, he clutched at the mayor's desk. He had the sense he was slipping over the edge of a high wall, the ground dropping away beneath him, his fingers digging desperately into the ledge so that he hung suspended for a last few terrifying moments. This was justice, he realized. Today he would finally lose his grip and plummet, and there was no one in the world - _not this time_ , he caught himself thinking - who knew or cared to save him. 

"I have proven unworthy of my position," he said. His eyes watered, but he made himself continue. "I abused my authority and I insulted you. I must be punished."

Captain Joire had been distant and cool, but M. Madeleine's false kindness was far worse. “Javert," the mayor said. "Here, take my handkerchief.” But the cloth he held out was white and without blemishes, and Javert could not tolerate the thought of leaving a mark on it. He shook his head and dashed a quick hand across his eyes.

“I beg your pardon, monsieur. I -- am not myself.”

.

Madeleine also was not himself. He put his hands beneath his desk to hide their trembling.

 _Six weeks._

Six weeks had passed since Javert had posted his letter of denunciation.

For six weeks the letter had existed - and all this time Madeleine had been living his life as usual, in innocence of the blade poised above him. He would be in irons now, bound for the assizes court at Arras, if another man had not been arrested in his place. The narrowness of his escape terrified him. 

Since Javert's sudden appearance in Montreuil four years before, Madeleine had been as kind to him as he could manage. His first reaction on seeing the man had been to disbelieve his own eyes. His second was rage and bafflement. The upright inspector was both the same and different from the young guard he had hated at Toulon. The twenty years that had passed had hardened Javert - his uniform and authority now seemed melded to his body, so that he was no longer flesh and blood but merely an instrument of the law he served so coldly. His mouth had hardened, too. When he patrolled the streets of Montreuil, his lips were fixed in a permanent sneer that had not been present at the bagne. His youth, like Madeleine's, was gone without a trace. But the damnable thing was that his eyes had not changed. These were still honest, and met Madeleine's own with a disturbingly forthright gaze. 

Throughout those early months, Madeleine had lain awake and gnashed his teeth over Javert. He had prayed, and hated, and prayed some more. Eventually he had decided Javert was a test sent by God. And so he worked dutifully at being courteous and even-tempered to his chief inspector and former tormenter. On most days he believed he was succeeding. 

The nights, however, were different. In the night as he lay alone, his mind returned to what had happened at Toulon, and he imagined vanquishing Javert in brutal ways. He thought of grabbing him by the throat and pummeling him, then hurling him to his knees so that the beaten inspector would crouch before him, weeping and bruised. He imagined Javert's proper uniform torn and disheveled, his lip swollen, and his dark, wet eyes glistening as he panted in pain. These images made Madeleine's blood rise, and he would take hold of his cock and imagine other ways he might avenge the wrongs Javert had dealt him long ago. Then the dawn would come - and he would scrub the stains out of his handkerchief and feel sick with himself. 

On a dark evening years before, on the road leading out of Digne, Madeleine had become a new man and buried the old. He had dug the grave deep and told himself that Jean le Cric was dead now and would never rise again. But since Javert's arrival in Montreuil, the brute had returned to life in a hideous way, writhing under the earth and crying out in a smothered voice. The starving and furious Le Cric had been revivified by the return of Javert. He had gained enough strength to thrust himself up from the dirt by night and enter Madeleine's chaste bed, seizing control of Madeleine's mind and flesh and making his bestial appetites known. Madeleine was afraid of Jean le Cric, a man he had condemned and interred but had failed to kill. 

Now, as Madeleine looked at the inspector who stood, head bent, on the other side of his desk, he could feel le Cric stir hotly under the earth - sweating, cursing, straining toward release. The buckle of Javert's stock was a quarter-turn out of place, and a stripe of naked skin showed bare and soft below his jaw. Usually Javert appeared inviolable and above the reach of le Cric's ferocious, mudstained hands. But not today. Under the earth, the convict writhed at the sight of prey. 

_I must be punished,_ Javert had said. 

Madeleine reflected rapidly. It was the kind of self-serving reflection used by naturally good men rushing to silence their conscience before doing wrong. Wouldn't Javert be improved by a lesson in humility? A touch of punishment would be no more than justice - and if Javert were brought down a little it might soften him, and the unfortunates of the town would benefit. It would be, on Madeleine's part, a charitable act.

“Inspector,” he said. There was a slight tremor in his voice.


	2. Chapter 2

Javert, standing rigidly erect, fixed his gaze on a distant point. The mayor's hands were busy at his waist.

This was entirely wrong. It was not a proper form of punishment, and even he, who so deserved to be broken, would be within his rights to protest. But he had said nothing when the mayor declared his intentions. He had only gasped and then, after a moment, had bent his head in something that approximated a nod of acquiescence. He had made himself complicit. Now he could do nothing but submit.

The mayor's delicate touch teased him through the material of his trousers. He flushed. Despite his petrified embarrassment, heat had awakened in his body. It was even possible that he arched discreetly toward those agile hands. He dared a furtive glance downward and saw the lewd open gape of his trousers, and the mayor's nimble fingers working close to his insistent flesh. As he watched, the fingers forced a button through its slot. The trousers gaped further. Javert looked away in haste, swallowing hard.

M. Madeleine's hands slid under his waistband and thrust the trousers down, exposing the linens of his drawers. The straining bulge swelled even larger. He clenched his jaw and desperately willed his flesh to shrink back into obedience, but his body ignored his command. It responded now only to M. le maire, because it recognized who was the stronger man. Javert was powerless. Any moment now, M. Madeleine would see the proof of his depravity. He closed his eyes, and his heart hammered in his chest.

“Inspector! What is the meaning of this?”

“I am-- I cannot say, sir--”

The mayor laid a hand over his drawers, playfully cupping the rigid flesh beneath. Javert felt his cheeks burn as hot as hellfire, and he clenched his teeth and wished to die.

“I see insolence is not your only failing, after all,” Madeleine remarked.


	3. Chapter 3

Madeleine ignored the distant protests of his conscience. He stood, shoving back his chair, and positioned the inspector so he faced the desk. Javert moved stiffly, maintaining an expression of stoic composure. It crossed Madeleine's mind to have him bend over like a schoolboy. But surely that would be going too far? 

A twitch jerked at the corner of Javert's mouth. The tiny movement hinted at something human and anguished in the man, something he was desperately holding back behind his rigid features. The hint of vulnerability stirred Madeleine; he was excited by the chink in the inspector's stone facade. He could not stop himself: he took hold of Javert's shoulders and pressed them down until the other man was forced to brace his hands on the desk. He heard himself say, “Don't move" in a rough voice. He was stronger than Javert; he was the mayor and had authority and no one would stop him. 

_Was he really doing this?_

Madeleine could see that some of the rigidity had gone out of Javert. Clearly he was willing to accept whatever his superior had in mind for him. Madeleine's heart was beginning to pound as he looked around for an implement. He thought of Javert's cudgel - but that would be too harsh, and truthfully, he had always imagined that when his moment for revenge came, it would be his own hands that dealt Javert what he deserved. His breath was coming faster. He undid his cuffs and pushed up his sleeves. But he was not yet ready to begin; he wanted to draw the moment out. He put a hand on Javert's hip. 

"Now, Javert. Don't look like that. You have been thrashed before, I am sure. At school when you were a boy - yes?”

When his prisoner failed to respond, Madeleine said crisply, “Do not compound your other crimes with stubbornness, or I will be forced to take sterner measures. Answer when a superior addresses you.”

"No, sir. I-- have not." 

"By your father, then, surely." He did not know anything about Javert's youth. He used to wonder about it in Toulon, when Javert first came, before everything turned dark and he lost hope. 

Javert muttered indistinctly, “I did not know my father." 

“Oh? Why not?”

“He was-- in prison when I was young.”

“ _Tant pis._ Where were you raised?” Madeleine allowed his hand to drift over Javert's hip. His prey jerked once as if trying to escape the touch, but remained in position. “I await your answer,” he said menacingly.

“In Paris, Monsieur. In-- In a women's prison there.”

“I see." Madeleine allowed the hint of a leer to flavor that utterance. It hung in the air, and in the silence that followed, he knew that both he and the inspector were thinking of the kind of women who ended in prison, the things they did and the men they did them with. But Madeleine felt a pang of remorse. Much as he feared and despised Javert, it was ignoble to mock a man for the accident of his birth. He could imagine the peaked little face of that long-ago boy staring out through the bars of a cell - an innocent sentenced in infancy for his parents' sins. 

Just then, Javert twisted again as if trying to shake off Madeleine's hand, and he made a choked noise that was almost a sob. Madeleine thrust sympathy away. _I remember well how little sympathy he showed me at Toulon._ And he lifted his hand.


	4. Chapter 4

_Don’t think,_ Javert admonished himself. 

This seemed the only answer to his current position. He would not think; he would just keep his eyes closed and his mind numb and pretend he was not Inspector Javert, bent over the desk of his superior with his trousers around his knees. 

But it was too late. He could not trick himself into ignorance. Already he could glimpse damnation rushing towards him as he plummeted, gathering speed. 

All his adult life, he had deliberately kept apart from other men. During his early years in Paris his colleagues had noticed his solitary ways and made a game of teasing him to come out with them. He had remained steadfast, and it had been a relief when they finally gave up. He had made a discipline out of loneliness. Aloof and friendless, he had committed all his passion to his career. He had been rewarded with rapid advancement through the ranks, and this made him even more single-minded. He had subdued his flesh and taught himself to neither want nor need companionship. As other men relished their vices - drink or women or gambling - Javert relished the pursuit of perfection in his work. 

And so the irony of his situation, together with the humiliation of it, stunned him senseless. He had come to the mairie this morning to do the correct thing. This was to have been his last day in uniform - he had expected to receive the justified dismissal, after which he would bow with precision, irreproachable as ever, and depart for his quarters to pack his few belongings, just as he had done years ago at Toulon. But instead-- 

He reminded himself, desperately, that the bizarre punishment had been M. Madeleine's idea. He had merely obeyed. He had no choice, since M. Madeleine was his superior. No one could fault him for acquiescing. He could not fault himself. 

He would have liked to believe this, but he knew it for a lie. 

He knew his weakness. Without ever thinking directly about it, he remained unconsciously on guard against it at all times. He was like a man born with a deformed hand, who keeps it concealed even in his sleep. The pitiless truth was that the mayor's demand had frightened and excited him. He wanted this. He had agreed to it. He was at fault. 

Footsteps and voices echoed down the corridor. It occurred to him, suddenly, that someone might walk in. There were important men in the town, wealthy gentlemen of the mayor's status, who might be accustomed to striding into his office as they pleased. In panic, he tried to wrench himself up. A hard hand clapped down on the back of his neck, forcing down his head.

"Be still." 

In M. Madeleine's voice was a note of command that moved Javert in a deep and secret way. Obedience followed naturally. He allowed his body to drape over the desk without resistance, his arms limp and his eyes closed. He was fearful and at the same time reassured by the authority of the voice and the strong hand upon his neck.

And so he remained, waiting for the blows.


	5. Chapter 5

_He is at my mercy. After so long, I can give him at least a taste of what I suffered._

Madeleine was consumed by a savage thrill. Something in Javert's acquiescence had spurred him to push matters much farther than he had intended. And now there was no turning back from it. Javert made a small noise, and Madeleine caught his breath. He slid a hand over the front of Javert's drawers, and felt the rigid flesh quiver at his touch. 

He would not have thought that the good Inspector even had the natural shape of a man under his uniform.

He had not always hated Javert. When they first met so many years ago, he had watched the solemn young guard, with his purposeful stride and forthright gaze, and believed he might be different from the others. He had been a desperate creature at the time of Javert's arrival to Toulon, for he had been in prison for more than three years by then, and the bagne was making him less than human. He could sense this and felt a sort of dumb anguish over it, like men in stories who are cursed and grow donkeys' ears and drop to all fours and lose their power of speech. By the summer of Javert's arrival at Toulon, the man once known as Jean Valjean had fallen so far that he barely remembered his old free life in Faverolles. The appearance of Javert had changed things for him, though. He had felt something inexplicable for the guard, and looks had passed between them - looks which stirred in him a wild return of hope. But in the end, when Javert proved himself as perfidious and brutal as all the others, Madeleine's transformation from man to beast became complete.

Now this same man stood before him like a child before his father, humbled and exposed, his large hands wrapping the edge of the desk as he held himself very still. There was something innocent and touching about his obedience, Madeleine thought. Javert believed that authority meant virtue, and that M. le maire must be correct in delivering this punishment. Despite his rising rage and lust, Madeleine could not help feeling a twinge of shame over this. Javert did not know that inside the skin of the respected mayor lurked the black vengeful heart of Jean le Cric. Of the two men in that office, one was scrupulously honest, while the other-- 

To banish this unpleasant thought, Madeleine raised his hand quickly and prepared to strike. The prisoner evidently understood the movement, for he tensed and pressed his thighs together. His tremors made Madeleine's desire blossom hotter. _You don’t know pain yet, Javert. Have no fear though: I will teach you all I know. Just as you once taught me._

_And now--!_ he thought with exultation. _Like this--!_


	6. Chapter 6

As Madeleine lifted his hand, Javert tensed and his hips shifted. The hand came down, and the crack of the blow burst across the room. Javert gasped aloud and flung his arm across his mouth. Madeleine, feverish at the sight, raised his hand again. 

This time Javert bit against his forearm as the blow struck home. Through the thin material of his inspector's drawers, Madeleine felt the hard muscles quiver. 

A third time his hand fell, and this time he was rewarded with a small whimper. The sound of it was almost too much to bear. Not wanting to lose control of himself, he paused and let his hand rest where it lay. He stroked in smooth circles, none too gently. “Take your punishment, Inspector. You need correction. I do this for your own good.”

Javert knew these words were true. He deserved it and he needed it and it felt right. He nodded. He clenched his buttocks as he awaited the next blow. The mayor’s hard hand had inflected an agony of the flesh, but this waiting, the drawn-out helplessness of it, the thoroughness of his debasement before a superior man, inflicted an agony of the spirit. It appalled him, but he yearned for more. He was dangerously close to weeping - though not from pain.

Madeleine slid his hand onto Javert’s thigh and wrenched his drawers upward to expose bare flesh. “I want to see,” he muttered, his voice low and hoarse. He no longer sounded to Javert like the kind and cultured mayor, but like a rough man from the docks or the town jail. Javert was ashamed of how that voice worked inside him. “I want to see you beaten red. I’ll have you unable to sit or ride for weeks.” He leaned down and spoke near Javert’s ear. “What will they say at the station-house when you arrive limping?” His hand was hot. Javert flinched at the reminder of career and uniform and the waiting world beyond Monsieur le maire's office. He felt the mayor lean his other arm across the small of his back. The mayor's roving hand slid down over the curve of Javert‘s skin, and then-- 

Javert gasped. 

The calloused fingers probed between his thighs. Madeleine’s rough thumb stroked the underside of his balls. Javert bit back a moan. Desperately he tried to keep his thighs together - but his will, once more, was too weak. His thighs slid apart for the mayor‘s hand. Madeleine gave a low, knowing laugh, and Javert’s face burned.

“Very good, Javert. You are mine now, aren’t you?”

Javert could not bring himself to answer. But the hand withdrew and the mayor's voice turned hard. "Say it. Confess that you are mine."

And Javert, fighting the heat that rose higher in his groin, heard himself say the damning words: “I-- I am yours, Monsieur le maire.”

The strong, thick fingers of Madeleine played in his crevices and forced his legs wider. Those rough hands cupped his balls, and then slid higher under his disordered drawers, exploring and caressing. He clamped his teeth together until they ached. 

With no warning, in a sudden finger-thrust, Madeleine violated his taut entrance. Javert could not keep from crying out. The finger twisted and pressed deeper, burning as it went. His humiliation was complete. But alongside humiliation, he felt in his darkest untouched places a driven need. This was what he wanted. Maybe it was what he had always wanted. It struck him with some horror that the mayor now knew what kind of man he was - but this too was what he wanted: to be exposed and to be known. 

The invading finger twisted harder, and Javert, gasping, clenched involuntarily against it. But he did not try to pull away.


	7. Chapter 7

"Monsieur le maire, may I come in?"

His attache's voice was muffled by the office door. Madeleine froze. He had not heard Etienne knock.

"Monsieur le maire! I have the post you have been waiting for. From Montfermeil."

"I-- am busy just now. Thank you, Etienne. Please leave it outside my office."

"Very well, Monsieur." Footsteps retreated down the corridor.

Madeleine let out his breath. _What am I doing? I must be mad!_ Hastily he pulled his finger out, ignoring Javert's pained gasp, and yanked the man's drawers straight. He was suddenly horrified by the sight of that naked flesh. "Get up!" he hissed.

Javert scrambled up. He was disheveled and damp, his eyes wild like a frightened horse, and he did not look at Madeleine as he set his clothes rapidly in order and buttoned on his greatcoat. He kept his body angled away from the mayor. Within a moment he was properly attired - though anyone who knew him could have told at a glance that the Inspector was not his accustomed self. "M-Monsieur," he muttered, still looking down as he made to leave. His face was crimson.

As he reached for the door, Madeleine saw that he was panting slightly. He looked broken, though not destroyed so much as overcome. His air of stony righteousness was shattered and his former self - the face of the young man he had once been - showed itself plainly. Into Madeleine's chest rushed a tide of memory, carrying pain and longing and forgotten hope. Suddenly he could not bear for the moment to be over.

Leaping up, he seized Javert's hand and brought it to his aching groin and pinned it there, thrusting himself against it. Javert tried to pull away, but Madeleine gripped him harder. Javert moaned. For the first time, he looked up. As their eyes met, a flash of understanding passed between them.

"I want you," Madeleine whispered fiercely, "at my home, tonight. Come after the dinner hour."

A spark of fear showed on Javert's face, but Madeleine pressed his advantage. He thrust harder, so that Javert's fingers clutched at his clothed cock. "Do not disobey. We will resume your punishment when you arrive. Do not forget that you are still in my debt, as well as under my orders."

Javert's hair was in disarray; as he bowed a lock of it fell across his face. He tucked it swiftly behind his ear and set his hat in place and was gone without a backward glance.

After he left, Madeleine picked up the length of black ribbon that had fallen to the floor, and put It in his pocket.


	8. vendredi, soir

_What have I done?_

It was well after dinner and Madeleine clutched the rosary in his hands and fixed his eyes on the crucifix on the wall. He had knelt like this for a long time and his joints pained him but he would not rise, not until God answered his prayers and washed him clean of the corrupt thoughts that stained his soul.

Javert was late. Most likely he would not come. That was good; that would be a relief. But what if he did come? He was, after all, not a man to flout a superior's command. If he came, Madeleine would immediately send him away. However, that would be discourteous, would it not? Indeed, he would not know exactly how to go about it. Perhaps he could instruct his housekeeper to do the thing herself. She could answer the door and say the hour was too late and that Monsieur had already retired to his bed.

That would be best. He should instruct her to do exactly that. He should tell her now.

But the thought of _bed_ prompted a thrilling image: the Inspector face down upon Madeleine's mattress with his bare legs splayed apart and his hands clasped behind him. Madeleine prayed more fervently, the words tumbling from his lips in a desperate rush. He could not keep his mind on the Lord. _Javert, naked, under my hands._ His cock pulsed. It was obscene to have such thoughts while kneeling before the Savior. 

He had occasionally looked at other men or women in Montreuil-sur-Mer but never had he allowed himself to pursue his desires. It had not been difficult to turn away. What he had felt for Javert today was different. Madeleine wanted something more than the release of two bodies coming together. He wanted a thing he couldn't name. It had something to do with the glimpse of Javert broken and vulnerable, his stone facade shattered. The undertow of memories pulled at him. In despair he cast the rosary aside and buried his face in his hands.

Trying to rid his mind of Javert, he forced himself to think of the other terrible matter: the jailed man Champmathieu in Arras. That man was surely also praying at this moment, begging divine Providence for salvation. But Providence had put the matter squarely on Madeleine's own shoulders; only he could bring about Champmathieu's deliverance. If he did not step forward, the unlucky man would be forced to take on the fate of the criminal whose face he shared. He would be convicted as Valjean and he would ride the wagons as Valjean; he would be chained and staked to the punishment of Valjean until death in its mercy released him, and in the daily log of the bagne his death would be recorded as _Jean Valjean, recidivist, deceased_. Champmathieu was a seed tossed to the millstone, and the relentless might of Justice was poised to crush him. The millstone would not pause to spare this helpless kernel of humanity. Indeed, it had been built especially for his destruction.

 _I must come forward_ , he thought, _and confess._ But this idea filled him with horror. He could almost feel the weight of the iron collar. He put his hands to his throat.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.


	9. Chapter 9

Javert had no doubt in his mind. 

He had no intention of going to M. Madeleine's house tonight. M. Madeleine had issued not a legitimate order but an indecent proposition. Javert was not bound by it. He would not weaken. After the dinner hour he would retire to his chaste and narrow bed just as on every other night when his work was done. What had happened today in the mairie had been no more than an aberration. Such things happened occasionally. Men of authority, men who were leaders of society, had strength and passion which sometimes led them beyond the bounds of convention. At the mairie he had obeyed, and that had been the only correct course of action. However, the incident must not be repeated. It was likely that the mayor himself now regretted what had passed between them, and wished him to stay away. 

His cock moved. A deep empty place inside of him quivered in longing.

_I am yours. All yours._

Night fell. He found himself on the doorstep of the mayor.

 

He had expected to see first a servant, but it was the mayor himself who opened the door. Javert felt himself color when their eyes met. He could not help noticing that M. Madeleine blushed as well. The mayor did not invite him in. It was as he had first suspected: he was not wanted; in fact he had embarrassed himself by appearing. The mayor was clearly shocked at the sight of him. He should never have come.

The mayor stammered slightly. "M-my housekeeper, Mere Plinet, is an excellent woman but stone deaf. She is likely in the kitchen and would not have heard you knocking."

"Of course, M. le maire." He waited, taking pains not to shift from foot to foot. He waited to be dismissed. There was an awkward silence, during which the two men regarded each other warily. Then both started to talk at once.

"It is a fine evening--"  
"I trust you had no trouble--"

Both broke off mid-sentence. Finally it was M. Madeleine who took the lead.

"Please," he said stiffly. "Come in. I have some affairs on my mind and wish your report."

M. Madeleine showed him, not to an office, but to his own sitting room where he pulled up a second chair before the leaping fire. When they were both seated, the mayor turned to him and said abruptly, "I remain much troubled over this Valjean affair."

Javert bowed his head. "Of course, Monsieur. I committed a terrible offense."

"I wish to know more about this man, the one being held at Arras. I suppose-- he looks very like me?"

"I traveled to Arras and saw for myself. Your faces are in some ways similar. But his is brutish and has a kind of bestial slyness. He lacks the refinement that you-- that a magistrate--" Javert fell silent, inwardly cursing himself.

"And you recognize him from prison. At-- Toulon, was it?"

"Indeed. He has changed since then, but I would still know him anywhere. His features have coarsened - probably from stupidity and a dissolute life -- and he now walks with the stoop of an old man."

The mayor's eyes moved over him. His manner was oddly hesitant. Javert did not know what to make of it. "I find it curious," M. Madeleine said after a heavy pause, "that you retain such a memory of a convict you knew so long ago. It must be that this Valjean made an impression on you. Tell me--" and he leaned forward "--what sort of man was he? How did he strike you?"

Javert cleared his throat. If he closed his eyes he could see Valjean before him in chains, kneeling in the dust, as he had seen him on the day of his arrival at Toulon. The memory hurt. Even at that first meeting he had been taken aback by the man's obvious strength, his fierce gaze and stoic endurance - but it was Valjean's air of simple decency that had seemed to set him apart from all the others. _But I was young then, and a fool._

Well, he had been punished for it. 

He did not necessarily wish to say all this to M. Madeleine. "He was a thief, and a dangerous man. He was brutishly strong and could scale a wall using the smallest chinks as footholds. He was less talkative than most but was regarded as something of a leader by the others -- perhaps that is why I remember him particularly. He was not altogether stupid. It is said he eventually learned to read and write in prison."

"You seem to have made quite a study of him," the mayor answered, more coldly. He seemed displeased, and Javert wondered if he had somehow given offense. "But of course, you would have gone back over his record after you began suspecting me of being other than I claim." 

"A thousand pardons, M. le maire. How I could have made such an error--"

"Well. We shall set the matter straight, shall we not? I did not mean to bore you with talk of work. I expect you are eager to receive your punishment, so you can have it over with." He rose and beckoned Javert to follow. "Sometimes anticipation of a painful but unavoidable event, can be more a torment than the thing itself. And I would not want to keep you in torment." He smiled pleasantly enough, but his eyes were strangely lit. A chill ran down Javert's spine and his cock began to throb.

"At least," the mayor added, "not forever."


	10. Chapter 10

Madeleine led Javert out of the sitting room, not looking back but keeping his ears cocked to the man's footsteps behind him. Javert was following, slowly, but without resistance. Javert had come here of his own volition when he could have stayed away. He had asked for punishment; he _wanted_ it. He was submitting freely. Therefore Madeleine was doing nothing wrong. He could not be said to be taking advantage.

Soon the two men faced each other in Madeleine's bedroom. 

"We will resume where we left off earlier," he said. The words felt awkward on his tongue. "Do not move. I am going to take off your coat." 

Javert held quite still and let himself be stripped. He flinched when Madeleine tossed the coat carelessly to the floor. But Madeleine gave him a challenging look, and he said nothing. 

The inspector's demeanor had changed. Gone was his usual front of fierce supremacy and unassailable correctness, but neither did he appear stunned and shamed as he had in the mairie. He simply stood quietly, head bowed like a soldier awaiting his orders.

His boots and trousers soon lay beside the coat, making a small heap on the floor.

Madeleine was finding the air thick and warm and wished he had thought to open a window. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands on Javert's narrow waist. The inspector stiffened for a moment but did not pull away, even when Madeleine slipped his hands lower and felt for his cock through the thin material of his drawers. It jerked in his hand. It stood already at attention. As did Madeleine's own.

Madeleine slipped a hand under Javert's waistband and wrapped his palm around the hot, hard flesh, feeling it jump again. _So this is what it's like,_ he thought in wild wonder. He was concentrating so hard on Javert that his mouth had fallen open and he realized he was breathing hard, gasping almost, but it did not seem to matter. As his heart quickened he tentatively fingered the ridge along the underside. Javert's flesh was hard and spongy at the same time. Madeleine thought it should not feel like such a new thing - after all he had had himself in his hands countless times, and had occasionally gripped the flesh of other convicts. But Javert felt different from any other. Madeleine touched the bulbous head carefully, and then the small opening at the tip. His fingers came away sticky. 

As he slid his whole hand along the shaft, a cry leaped from Javert's throat -- an animal noise, involuntary, such as could only be made by a man in the grip of his lower instincts. His head was thrown back and his whole body had gone rigid. Madeleine yanked his hand away. A little moan escaped Javert's dry lips.

"Let us be clear," Madeleine said. His memories of Toulon made him cruel, and Javert's submission made him reckless. "Our business here is your penance, not your pleasure. There is not to be any release. If you spend, I will be disappointed and we will start over, while you practice better control over your...impulses. Your ill-conceived letter to the Prefecture has already proven that you tend to act in haste, and have need of improvement. Am I understood?"

Javert swallowed. He nodded. "Yes, Monsieur," he whispered.

"This time there will be no attaché of mine knocking at the door to save you." His voice was ragged with excitement, and to his own ears he sounded not like gentle M. Madeleine but like that uncouth savage with the yellow ticket who had slouched out of Toulon. 

He tapped his lap. "Are you prepared? Assume your position."


	11. Chapter 11

Once again he was doing the unthinkable as he bent to the mayor's demand. He was split into two halves: one hurling himself over a cliff with the abandon of a soul already lost, the other looking on in frozen horror.

He tried to keep his breathing steady. He was still sore from the blows received earlier in the mairie and he feared the fall of the mayor's heavy hand - but worse still was the terror that he might disgrace himself. The friction of his hard flesh against M. Madeleine's thighs made him hold himself very still. His body was betraying him utterly. _Remain silent,_ he ordered himself. _Whatever comes. Do not lose control._

. 

Madeleine raised his hand and concentrated on the task before him. He had spread his thighs a little for balance, allowing Javert's stiff rod to press between them. The full weight of Javert's hips bore down on him pleasantly. The inspector's body was long and well-muscled, and Madeleine judged that he was a man who could put up a good fight if he had to. But just now he was lying obediently still. There were no words for Madeleine's heat and hunger. The careful penitent had for so long maintained dominance over the savage impulses of Jean-le-Cric, that he found himself shocked by the urgency and heat of his own desire. Just for tonight jean-le-Cric would be allowed out of his stifling crypt. Mere Plinet slept down the hall, too deaf to wake even for the Lord's trumpet. This was the vengeance he had wanted. It was so perfect that for a moment he was unwilling to begin. 

But only for a moment.

His first blow was hard enough to drive Javert's cock deep between his own thighs. It was all so right -- his unleashed power, the Inspector's vulnerable flesh, the resounding clap of the blow, and the sharp gasp he heard from his prisoner.

He raised his hand again. With the other, he gripped the back of the inspector's damp waistcoat, securing him in place. "No one can hear you," he urged. "Cry out. You need not hold back." He brought his hand down again, again, making Javert's near-naked hips jump and shudder. He heard a muffled noise of pain. "Beg for mercy, Javert." His hand rose and fell. He struck up a steady rhythm, grinning as Javert's body rocked helplessly while low moans and gasps escaped his lips. "You have heard of mercy, have you not? Give in. Let me hear it. Beg for it. Beg like a dog." Javert was now whimpering with every blow. Madeleine felt power surge through his body. He had fought at the bagne whenever he had an excuse. It was a kind of freedom - the freedom to be savage and brutish, which was the only kind convicts were allowed. His muscles, so long unused, sang with joy as he gave them rein. But still Javert had not broken as Madeleine wanted him broken. 

He strained forward, licking his lips, waiting in all eagerness for the desperate plea that was to come. _Do you see at last, Javert? The mercy you are about to plead for, you would not give to others._ "Louder, Inspector!" he said. "I cannot hear you yet!"

 

Fire consumed Javert's flesh. He fought to keep control of himself, but the blows kept falling -- _was there no end?_ \-- and his whole world narrowed to just this: the searing hand of retribution.

"By Christ," he gasped. He scarcely recognized his own voice. _"Please."_

"Please -- what?" It was the voice of the mayor, but he was speaking for God, who sat in judgment on Javert's sins. God knew this is what he deserved.

Javert tried to answer, but his words were swallowed up by a half-cry as another fiery blow fell.

"What was that? You must speak more clearly!". Another blow fell. A faraway corner of Javert's mind wondered how much a body could endure before it shattered.

" _Please,_ Monsieur." His voice cracked. He was approaching the point where even a strong man will sell his soul for deliverance. 

Madeleine struck again with violence. "Yes, Inspector. You may say it. You may beg anything of me."

"For God's sake, Monsieur," Javert gasped. He lifted his head. His shoulders were heaving and he was wet and trembling. 

"Yes," the mayor urged. "Yes."

 _"Please--"_ gasped Javert. There was so much more he wanted to say, to shout, to beg for. But his jaws snapped shut and his will asserted itself over his flesh. His will would not allow him to give in, however much he longed to.

. 

Madeleine struck again. He could hear Javert clenching his teeth to hold back his cries. Any normal man would have been already broken. Javert, curse him, was determined to be not a man. And when had he ever been a man? He was a stone statue who personified the law. Madeleine found himself both enraged and desperate. The fleeting vision of Javert's humanity that he had seen earlier at the mairie now seemed to taunt him. The satisfaction he needed hovered just beyond his reach. 

Grasping Javert's drawers in both hands, he ripped them open. The shredded cloth fell away to reveal red welts that had bloomed across tender skin. "You want it harder? That can be arranged!" he hissed. "Before I am done, I swear you will be weeping!" He balled his hand into a fist and brought it down again and again. His cock throbbed to the point of pain. His arm ached. He would not stop until the bastard cried out. He needed to hear it; he deserved to hear it. He had prayed, all these years, and had tried to forgive. He had done his best.

But the truth was now plain. The past twenty-four years had done no more than crystallize his bitterness. He had forgiven Javert nothing, and his heart still smoldered with rage. 


	12. Chapter 12

_Toulon 1800_

Valjean was on his knees under the merciless sun. His balls were throbbing and a pool of his own vomit was before him, the stink of it burning in his nostrils as he tried to get his breath. He was determined not to cry out. He would keep his dignity, which was all he had left. 

He stared at the boots planted in front of him. They were uncreased and shining. He knew without looking up that the feet of a new guard were inside those boots. He knew what the guard would be like, too - Valjean had seen many new guards come through the iron gates, all of them swaggering, nervous, eager to prove their dominance with whip and cudgel. As another wave of nausea struck him, he struggled to keep his gorge from rising again. Another blow would fall now, from either the guard in front of him or the one behind. He could not stop the cudgel from falling, and with his hands chained he could nothing to protect himself. But he would not let his tormenters see him beaten, so he made himself raise his head. 

The new guard was tall but had a boyish face. His uniform was crisp and free of dust, and he regarded Valjean with a grave expression. Surprisingly, there was no scorn there - only a measured thoughtfulness and a frank hint of curiosity. His dark eyes traveled over Valjean, taking him in it seemed, from the iron collar at his neck to his sweat-drenched smock to the irons that imprisoned his wrists. Then the quiet gaze returned to Valjean's face and continued to study him. 

"Javert." From behind him came the crisp voice of Vovet, who was second-in-command at the bagne. Valjean's stomach heaved again, but he fought it down. "We're finished with this creature," Vovet said. "Now I'll show you the drydock steps." Valjean longed for the two to move on so that he could collapse and have a moment's respite. But today Vovet was in no hurry. He had apparently taken the new guard under his wing and was showing him the world he would now be master of. Vovet's next words were spoken with careless assurance. "That ship you see down there is two weeks behind schedule, so Captain Joire is going to order an extension to the work-shifts. Beginning tomorrow, we'll be getting them out here before dawn to work them by lamplight. It means a long day for us and you can expect to spend half of it beating the slowness out of them til your arm aches - but you're young and eager for it, eh? Follow me." 

The young guard looked down once more before turning to go. Valjean made himself look up. The mention of extended work-shifts struck him like another blow, but he would not show weakness. Their eyes met for an instant. The guard made a small nod. The gesture implied something like a polite leave-taking, and it stunned Valjean. 

When the two guards were gone, Valjean vomited again and then struggled to his feet. 

That had been the start of it. The surprise of that nod\and the decency it implied had baffled him. Over the next weeks he watched the new man, trying to figure him out. The other convicts did the same, of course, for their own reasons - any new guard was a relief to the grueling boredom of the bagne, and such a young one made good sport. Javert became an immediate target of the rough men who would raise their voices whenever he was nearby and suggest various creative uses such a smooth-cheeked innocent could be put to. Valjean did not join in, since he was taciturn by nature. He had no close comrades and had not joined any of the prison gangs. Because of his great strength and his willingness to fight when challenged, he was respected and the others rarely spoke to him.

He had been at Toulon so long by then that at times he was not sure he had ever lived another life - had ever woken at dawn in a crowded cottage on a hillside, been brother to Jeanne and uncle to her children, had ever made his living among the strong and steadfast orchards of Faverolles. It was becoming more difficult every day to remember the smell of Jeanne's cooking or to see a way forward beyond the gates; the bagne was becoming all he knew and all he expected. Every day was an equal misery to the one before. Even as he descended into brutishness, he fought against it. He did not want to forget Faverolles entirely or let the guards beat his last memories out of him, and this stubbornness gave him a slender reason to go on. 

Having little else to occupy his mind, he made a study of Javert. The new guard took pride in his position; you could see that by the shine of his uniform, which remained crisp and clean as the weeks wore on. The same could not be said for his cudgel. The loudest words he spoke were with his strong right arm, for despite his youth, he held his own against the hardened men. What fascinated Valjean was that he never lost his temper. This made him seem a different breed from all the others, who cursed the convicts and mocked them and hit out randomly, maintaining their authority through a constant casual sadism. Javert was not like that. Though young, he seemed fearless; and though hard, he was not capricious. Amid all the sweltering masses in that place -- the vicious masters and the savage beast-men they ruled over -- Javert held himself apart. A faint halo of civility clung to him, carried in from whatever place he came from. It must have been, Valjean thought grimly, a place far from Toulon. 

There was also a hunger in the young man's eyes, which led Valjean to conclude he had grown up poor. 

One blazing afternoon as the prisoners prepared to resume work after their water-break, Javert paused beside Valjean and stooped to check his ankle below the leg-iron. The sores there had been festering for months, made worse by the waist-deep saltwater the men were forced to work in. He had not brought the wound to anyone's attention. What was the point? There was no one to care, and a word of complaint might earn a beating. 

"This needs regular cleaning," Javert said, frowning, "or you may lose the foot. I will have a bucket of fresh water fetched and you will soak it every night in the mess. Tomorrow morning the smith will put an iron on your other ankle; this band will have to be cut off." Though the words were spoken with no particular kindness, Valjean was nonetheless struck dumb by them. He merely gaped, while inwardly his heart was pounding. _Do you see me? Am I still human?_ Javert rose and looked directly into his eyes. Once more, the young guard gave him a silent nod before moving off. 

. 

After this incident, Valjean began to imagine impossible things. He could not help it. In his mind he constructed a place of escape: a rustic home like the one where he spent his childhood. In the kitchen stood a rough wood table, and at the table sat two men, sharing a simple meal of bread and wine. Over the wine, Valjean told Javert about his sister's children and all the trouble the older ones got into; also the lore of tree-pruning, the songs his mother used to sing, and the way the apple-blossoms smelled in springtime. Javert listened gravely. Then he in turn told the stories of his past: his family, the troubles that had left him with that hungry look; the route that had brought him to this God-forsaken place. In Valjean's reveries, the chains and uniforms that marked one of them a beast and the other a tyrant were not present. They sat together as equals: two men like any other. 

He would slip away to this cottage whenever his mind was allowed a moment's freedom. He looked forward to the night and the plank, when he would make his escape and meet Javert at the wood table. There, the blows and insults he had suffered in the day receded, and his exhausted body found new strength. Around the imagined cottage, the trees of Faverolles sprang back to life; the brook burbled again past his feet, even the words of his father's songs returned to him in snatches of memory.

In the day he watched Javert all the time now, and as months passed, his stares became more bold. _Meet my eyes!_ he would think, as he stared at the young guard in the mess or at reveille. _Remind me that I am still a man!_ And he began to rejoice secretly-- for more and more, it seemed, Javert looked back at him. Valjean, who had almost become an animal, came to know again that he was human. He walked straighter and began to think of his family and to try to remember their faces. He set his mind on returning to Faverolles. One night he summoned his courage and dared to calculate the year and the season, counting on his fingers. He was amazed to realize he had served the majority of his sentence. He had less than eighteen months of suffering ahead of him. He would survive. The gates would someday open for him and he would go free. 

Then came one morning in early spring. The prisoners were marched out and assembled on three sides of the exercise yard. It was not the usual procedure, and so they murmured amongst themselves and braced for whatever might come. Valjean was standing barefoot like the others when two guards -- one was the sadist Vovet -- advanced on him and pulled him out of line. A third trained a pistol on his head. He did not understand what was happening but stumbled forward as they shoved and prodded him to the flogging post in the center of the yard. They yanked his arms up so his wrist-chain could be passed through the iron ring set atop the post. Helpless but snarling, he tried to conceal his terror. The other convicts looked on in silent witness. 

And then Vovet and the others drew back. Another guard stepped forward. Valjean was stunned by who it was, and by the cudgel already ready in his hand, and by the strange smile of menace on the smooth young face. 

Then the first blow fell. And the next, the next, the next. Valjean had taken many beatings, but there had been none this savage or inexplicable. This was not the usual casual beating for insolence or thirty lashes for fighting. Blow after blow fell. He roared. He was blind from the blood that ran into his eyes. His body was smashed back and forth. He saw flashes of light like sunbursts; he heard rushing water; he swallowed iron; he felt his skin split all the way to the bone. He screamed. He believed he was in Hell under the devil's hammer. He understood that he was meant to die that day, and that his death was being drawn out as a spectacle or a warning. His blood and life were pouring out of him, and he was falling into a burning darkness. 

Days later, when he returned to something like consciousness, he was in the infirmary chained to a plank. His limbs and head felt like they had been burst open, like smashed fruit. Someone was moaning; it was a while before he realized the voice was his own. His eyes were swollen shut, and in the darkness Javert's face hovered. He could not rid himself of it. Clutching the rough blanket against his wounds, he asked himself what kind of fool he had been, to hope for better from the world. 


	13. Chapter 13

Remembering Toulon, Madeleine struck Javert in bitter fury. He didn't care where the blows fell. He had reverted to the beast Toulon had made of him.

Javert knew only stars: blinding white lights bursting one upon the next in the too-bright firmament behind his eyes. The pain was without beginning or end. He clung doggedly to consciousness and focused his whole self on keeping his teeth clenched. He could do nothing to stop the whimpering, but still he had not cried aloud.

He was a man who could not bend. But, like all men, he could break. 

He felt the scream rise in his throat and he bit it back. A blow to his kidney forced it closer to his lips-- and then another-- and finally he could take no more. A wail broke from him. It was high and desperate. It could have been a woman's cry or a child's.

Valjean, blind in his rage and ecstasy, did not stay his hand.

As the flaming hand of judgment had its way with him, Javert's scream lasted until he had no more breath to sustain it. Then he broke into a cascade of shattered sobs. Suddenly it seemed so easy to surrender. The rigid constraints of his mind gave way all at once. He was nothing, and he was free. He felt small and helpless but also unchained, as if he had been encased in a stone prison and was now at last released. The mayor's broad thighs and muscled body enveloped him. He felt a _belonging_ that made him complete. Despite the pain, his loins still throbbed with desire. 

.

Madeleine's mind cleared gradually. The man across his lap had broken; he had what he wanted. His groin still ached and longed for relief, but his madness had lifted and he was returning to himself. His right arm was so sore it had become numb. His hand burned as if he had plunged it into boiling water. And Inspector Javert lay limp and whimpering and unresisting, his shoulders heaving, his weight pressing down on Madeleine's thighs.

It was, at last, enough.

He raised Javert up roughly, wanting to look into the man's face, but Javert sagged in his arms. Now that the blows had stopped he was mostly quiet, except for his panting breaths and occasional sobs and hitches. Madeleine released him. "Javert..." 

Javert slid to his knees on the floor. He fumbled at Madeleine's crotch and pressed his mouth over the swollen flesh which strained there against the mayor's trousers. He began to grapple blindly with the mayor's buttons. Madeleine's cock pulsed wildly -- _Good God, it was too much._ He could not contain himself. He undid his trousers and bared himself to Javert's seeking mouth.

Javert opened eagerly. Madeleine thrust, hard, into that hot wet cavern. He wrapped both his hands in Javert's damp, disheveled hair and controlled the movements of his head, rocking back and forth as he entered deeply. Javert gagged but his eyes were still closed and he clung to Madeleine's thighs. Madeleine could not hold back. "Suck me," he muttered coarsely, thrusting. His balls contracted, and a spurt of hot bliss began in the root of his cock and spread outward like a consuming fire. He was rendered helpless with the pleasure of it. He bucked his hips twice more against Javert's mouth and then, gasping, he fell back upon the bed.

It seemed a long time before he could think again. He withdrew his length from Javert's mouth, though the other man leaned forward and continued to suck as long as he could, as if loathe to give him up. Then he took Javert by the chin and tilted up his face so he could look at him. 

Javert dripped sweat and tears. Some of Madeleine's thick fluid trailed from his lips. His dark eyes were liquid pools. The honesty that shone there was unbearable. 

"I am yours," Javert murmured. 

Madeleine released his grip. Javert, bending his head once more, laid his cheek upon the mayor's knees.


	14. Chapter 14

Madeleine's savage excitement dimmed. What had he done?

He raised the other man from his knees. Javert staggered, and Madeleine caught him and lowered him onto the bed, trying to be gentle. The man's wet cheeks, his grimace of pain, the tears beading in his dark lashes, all stirred in Madeleine a feeling that he could not name - something like pity; something like affection. Javert lay curled and trembling on his side. His bare flesh was scarlet, and Madeleine, catching a glimpse of it, looked away in shame. He drew up the coverlet with care. Javert reached out and gripped his hand.

The iron-gray hair lay in tangles. Some strands, wet with tears or sweat or something else, were stuck against his skin. Madeleine freed them. It seemed too intimate a gesture, something Javert - the cold and arrogant Javert he knew - would have objected to. But that Javert was destroyed. Madeleine, horrified, knew that no atonement for his crime would ever be enough. He swept the heavy locks back from Javert's forehead. The inspector groaned softly. Madeleine moistened a handkerchief in the washbasin and wiped his face.

"Thank you," Javert whispered, looking up at him.

Madeleine flushed and looked away. "I--" He did not know what to say. "I did not mean to hurt you like that."

"It is what I came for." Javert gave Madeleine the ghost of a smile. "You did what was necessary. It was just. And-- may I be forgiven now?"

Madeleine was aghast at the question. He spoke more harshly than he had intended. "Rest here tonight. You'll be better in the morning. And then-- and then--" He did not know what to say. "Then we will put this behind us," he finished lamely. 

A glint of humor showed in Javert's eyes. "As you wish, Monsieur. It is behind me already; I can feel it." The mayor colored, and made to pull away. Javert seized his hand again. "Stay," he murmured. He closed his eyes, and little by little his trembling abated. "Stay, please. For a little while. Please...Monsieur le maire..."

Madeleine did not dare extricate his hand, so he remained at Javert's side as the inspector's breathing became deep and untroubled and his face smoothed itself. He looked younger in repose. It was strange to sit beside a grown man and watch him sleep. Madeleine recalled his sister's cottage, and how he had sometimes sat like this beside the little ones and marveled at how peaceful they appeared, despite their empty bellies. 

_Tenderness._ That was what he felt.

He looked around the room. On top of all else, Madeleine could not believe that they were in this room together - he, and Javert beside him, in his very bed. He was accustomed to thinking of his bedroom as his only sanctuary, since it was the one place where he could undress safely with no prying eyes to see his scars. From this place he ventured forth armor-clad each morning in suit, cravat, and hat, wearing a well-practiced benevolent expression which he maintained throughout the day as he moved in the public eye. The only person besides himself who had ever entered here was Mere Plinet with her dustcloth, and she knew to enter only during the daytime while Madeleine was out. Never had he been in this bedroom with another soul. And yet: here lay Javert, and they were hand in hand, and he felt no danger.

But he did not remain easy for long. Soon bleak thoughts took him over and he rose and paced. His hand still smarted. He had beaten a man to tears. He had allowed savagery to take him over, as if he were no better than the man he used to be before the Bishop saved him. Finally he took his Bible from its place of honor on the nightstand and began leafing through the well-worn pages. He searched for something in those verses that would reassure him that he could return even from this; that salvation was still possible for a man like him. The hours passed, while his concentration swung between the hallowed words on the page and the quiet man in his bed. Eventually the eastern sky showed a crescent of milky light. Mme. Plinet was stirring in her room. Javert slept on.

Stealthily, Madeleine drew back the coverlet and, lighting a candle, examined Javert's wounded flesh. The sight of it flooded him with fresh horror. There was no denying the evidence written on the Inspector's skin. Yet as memories of the previous night rose before him, heat gathered inside him and his pulse quickened. Javert's face lay against the pillow and his lips were half-parted. 

"Inspector," he said at last. "Inspector Javert." The sun was making its way over the horizon now. Mere Plinet was moving about the kitchen.

Javert opened his eyes. At the sight of the mayor he came to full alertness, tried to sit bolt upright, and fell back with a sharp cry. Recollection registered on his face. "I-- am sorry, M. le maire. I have imposed. I must go.". He started to rise, grimacing. Madeleine hastened to fetch his trousers and coat.

"Let me help you," Madeleine muttered. "Are you able to walk?" Shamefaced, he helped Javert dress as swiftly as possible. The linen underclothes were torn and useless. The Inspector winced as he pulled his trousers on over bare skin. Madeleine looked down, unable to meet his gaze.

Javert hobbled to the bedroom door. "Your housekeeper," he murmured.

"I...I will walk you out the front gate. We will say you became ill while visiting last evening." He continued to address the floor, two feet in front of Javert's boots.

Javert remained in place, saying nothing, until finally Madeleine raised his eyes to see why he was silent. The other man was regarding him with a dark, intense gaze. Madeleine felt something open inside his chest. Those dark eyes were so familiar. 

"Monsieur," Javert muttered. He gripped Madeleine's sore right hand. Madeleine's breath came faster. "Please," Javert said. His voice was barely audible. And then, miserably: "Tonight." 

The sun was rising and the morning promised to be fair. Madeleine remained on the doorstep looking down the lane long after Inspector Javert, walking with a pronounced limp, had passed out of sight.


	15. samedi soir

That night Madeleine paced the halls after dinner. When he heard footsteps on the path outside, he flew. He was throwing open the latch while Javert was still lifting his hand to knock. 

As before, the two men knew a moment of hesitant awkwardness on the doorstep. And as before, a few stilted pleasantries were exchanged, after which Madeleine invited Javert to enter and sit by the fire.

"Or-- if you would rather stand--" 

"No; I will sit," Javert answered. He lowered himself gingerly, keeping his face impassive.

"Then you are all right?"

"Of course". 

They fell silent.

After a while, Javert cleared his throat. "So. I will be going to Arras soon. The trial date has been set and my testimony is required to establish the accused man's identity. He continues to maintain he is not the former convict Valjean. His lies, however, will avail him nothing." Javert bowed slightly. Doubtless he meant his words as reassurance. With the conviction of the other man, Javert's denunciation would be utterly forgotten and the mayor would be washed free of all rumor and suspicion that might otherwise have clung to his name. 

Madeleine, however, did not take the news as Javert had intended him to.

"How many days to the trial?" he asked in a choked voice.

"Six more. It will be held Friday next."

"And this man is sure to be convicted?"

"With my testimony, there will be no cause for doubt." He turned morose. "Still, I would have wished-- that things had turned out differently."

Madeleine looked up with sharp interest. "How so?"

Javert hesitated. Some things were hard to explain. "The criminal Valjean. I was very young when I came across him at Toulon. Back then I suffered from some romantic notions about men of that class. I thought rehabilitation was possible." He looked away. "Valjean was the one who showed me the error of that way of thinking. In the beginning I-- had some hope for him. I was willing to believe he was a man who had fallen once but could still right himself. That he would accept his punishment and benefit from it, and go on to an honest life."

"But--?" 

"But I was a fool." His voice betrayed his bitterness. "He was, as it turned out, irredeemable."

Javert thought it puzzling, how pale the mayor appeared by the glow of the fire.

"You were not at Toulon long, I believe. Perhaps in the end he turned out better than you thought?"

Javert snorted. "No. I learned soon enough what kind of man he was. It was enough to permanently disabuse me of my foolish notions. And I have been to Arras; so I have seen plainly the creature Valjean has become. Men like him do not change for the good. Not ever."

Madeleine studied his hands for a long while, and then shifted his gaze to the leaping flames. "Perhaps it is true," he said quietly. Then he got to his feet. "Will you come with me?" He turned away from the fire without awaiting Javert's answer.

Javert rose in one fluid motion and padded after him.


	16. Chapter 16

Madeleine did not light a lamp. The sun had slipped away long since, and the cover of darkness eased the awkwardness of their joining. They did not embrace. Just inside the bedroom door, Madeleine turned and put a tentative hand on Javert's shoulder. That was all it took; the inspector folded up under his touch. On his knees, he pressed an open-mouthed kiss over Madeleine's trousers and moaned. Madeleine let out a wordless sigh and loosened his clothes.

"Please," begged Javert. 

And then: "May I--?"

And later still, with his voice strained: "Yes; more; all of it!--"

Madeleine, his hands again buried in Javert's hair, gave a hoarse cry into the darkness.

Afterward, they moved to the bed, and Madeleine carefully readjusted his clothes as they sat a little apart from each other, not touching. Again an awkward silence was between them. Madeleine had something he wished to ask for, but it took him a while to summon the courage.

"I would like to see your-- your wounds."

"Would that please you?"

Since morning he had thought constantly of the marks left by his hands, and now he longed to look on them again. What color were they now? Did they hurt greatly? He imagined Javert suffering throughout the day, every time he sat or moved. All day, the pain would have chained Javert's thoughts forcibly to the events of the night before, reminding him that he was Madeleine's possession. The marks were proof that Javert was flesh and could be hurt like any man. All day - while writing his correspondence, meeting with the city tax officer - Madeleine had thought of Javert's body and what he had done to it. 

"Yes," he mumbled, embarrassed. "It would please me greatly."

"Then, as you wish."

Javert shifted about in the darkness. The bed creaked. Madeleine rose and lit a candle -- the same one he had used that morning to examine Javert as he slept. Javert lay on his side, and where red welts had been, dark swollen bruises now covered the soft flesh. In the flickering candlelight, the marks appeared nearly black. Madeleine ran his hands over them. Javert flinched but made no attempt to get away. Emboldened by the other man's acceptance of this perusal, Madeleine went one step further. He parted Javert's cheeks and looked between. No bruises were visible in the tenderest area, and he felt a little disappointed. 

Javert was holding himself very still, and Madeleine bent and put his lips near Javert's spread cleft. He blew gently. A moan came from Javert. Once again, Madeleine felt giddy with power, and strangely moved by Javert's unguarded trust. 

He said, "You know, I am still thinking of that convict of yours. This Valjean."

"What of him?" Javert's voice was wary.

"I begin to suspect you felt something for him, more than you admit. The way you speak of him--" He pressed one hand against Javert's bruised hip, and slid the other between the Inspector's bare thighs.

He had understood, ever since that morning at the flogging post, that Javert had never cared for him. But tonight, with Javert seemingly ready to succumb to anything he wanted, he had a dark hunger to recreate the fantasy he had harbored, and lost, at Toulon.

His fingers played with Javert's balls, drawing forth another throaty moan. He stroked the rigid cock, making it pulse; he tapped the bead of fluid at its tip. Javert whimpered, "Please, I cannot take more--"

He relished Javert's desperation. "Release is not permitted," he said. "You are not free; you are on parole with me and the terms are strict. The slightest violation of my rules would make you a recidivist." He kneaded Javert's buttocks, making him writhe. "Tell me more of him; this Valjean. What did you think of him, truly. What did you feel for him?"

"He was a prisoner like any other," Javert said between clenched teeth.

"I expect you beat him." His fingers teased the edge of Javert's hole.

"Yes," came the gasp. "I am sure I did, at times."

"You were a young man during your posting at Toulon. Quite young. Is it not so?"

"I was young," Javert agreed. Madeleine stroked him high between his thighs, feeling them quiver. 

"Tell me," said Madeleine - and now with sudden roughness he pressed down on Javert's wounded flesh. "Tell me that you desired him, as you desire me. Admit that you thought of him, and looked at him: long looks, whenever you could get away with it. Admit that this happened. I am certain of it. I want to hear you confess."

He could make out Javert's pained grimace. "Monsieur, it's true that he had...a kind of power to him. His strength was immense - it was like yours, Monsieur. Yes, I confess: I looked at him. For a few months only - through the fall and winter. But there was nothing improper between us. It was just that I imagined him a decent man. I told you," Javert muttered darkly, "I was quite young back then. I had foolish ideas which were not yet tempered by experience."

Madeleine traced his finger along the underside of Javert's cock. "I think you lie," he murmured. "I think you wanted him. A man in a red smock stinking of sweat, with a chain on his ankle and an iron collar round his neck. And you thought of him the way a man thinks of another, in the night." He bent and hissed the words into Javert's ear. "The upright guard with his cudgel and his whip and uniform, and the power of a god to lord over everyone - but you were desperate for it, weren't you, like a bitch in heat. Desperate to be mounted. You wanted it. You want it now."

"No!" The word was an explosion, and Javert bucked away - but Madeleine seized him by the hips and pinned him flat against the bed. 

"You must have no secrets from me!" he snarled. "That, too, is a condition of your parole. The truth now: you thought of it sometimes, looking at him across the mess hall, or when you watched him slaving in the sun. You thought how it would feel to lie with him."

"I-- I don't know! Yes, perhaps-- it was long ago-- I cannot say!"

"Say it," Madeleine hissed.

"So help me," Javert whispered. "Yes. It is true. I wanted it."

"You wanted Valjean - a convict in chains. That was why you watched him!"

"I-- yes!"

It was all fantasy, Madeleine knew; a helpless man being made to say the words his master wanted to hear. But it was still good to hear them said aloud. If only for this moment, in this room, he could rewrite the past and put a temporary balm on the pain of Javert's betrayal. Blindly he reached out, and his fist closed in Javert's hair. "Get down on the floor," he said. "On your knees!"

"Yes--! Anything--!". The bed creaked and Javert flung himself down instantly. Madeleine's cock jutted upright against his belly, hot as a poker from the fire.

"Tonight I am Valjean - as you had the audacity to claim in your letter to Paris. And let us say this is Toulon, where you are the guard and I the prisoner. And tonight-- tonight I'll give you what you've always dreamt of. Suck my cock. And when you're done - when you've swallowed everything I give you - thank me for it." He tugged Javert by the hair. "Call me Valjean. Tell me how much you want this."

"Valjean...please..." Javert moaned. "Valjean, God, yes. I want it--" He flung his arms around Madeleine's thighs. Madeleine felt Javert's body pressing hard against him, the hot mouth plunging forward, taking in every centimeter of Madeleine's rigid flesh. He felt sickened and triumphant. He thrust his hips forward with abandon. And in the soft halo of candlelight, he saw Javert's eyes roll upward in ecstasy--


	17. dimanche

Madeleine went to Mass the next morning as he always did, but he could not keep his attention on the ancient holy rites. Fearing that his thoughts were a stain on the soaring white spires he so loved, he crept out the back doors before Communion.

His mind swung back and forth endlessly between two terrible things. At the one pole stood Javert, beckoning from the center of a blazing fire; at the other stood the man called Champmathieu in a black cell, suspended above a pit, howling with terror. When he thought of Javert it was with a mingling of excitement and despair. He counted down the hours until he would see that tall figure on his doorstep again, and his blood heated when he thought of what he might do with Javert's body when they were alone. His desires both consumed and terrified him. But when he thought of his double in Arras, he felt the pit opening beneath his own feet, and horror gripped his belly like an icy hand. 

The trial was five days away.

That night when the two men met, there was no awkwardness in their greeting. Nor did they make conversation before the fire. Madeleine opened the front door; they exchanged a nod and a knowing look; and then Madeleine stood back and Javert stepped across the threshold. Madeleine led the way to his bedroom without a word.

He had something in mind. The thought had come to him that morning while the priest had been speaking in sonorous Latin, and all day it had plagued him ceaselessly. He could see only one way to cleanse his mind of his hateful desire. But to accomplish it he would have to act swiftly and blindly, so that his body might outdistance the appalled protests of his conscience.

"I want you naked," he said roughly. Javert complied as Madeleine had known he would, and he lit the candle and watched with mounting anticipation. There was no coquetry in Javert's movements; he simply stripped himself of his uniform as efficiently as he had surely done a thousand times before in private. He hesitated over his under-clothes but after a look at Madeleine's stony face, he proceeded to do as he had been bid. He folded the clothes precisely and laid them on a chair. His cock jutted out stiffly. Then he stood with eyes lowered, accepting Madeleine's raking gaze.

"Turn around. Brace your hands against the bed."

"Yes, Monsieur." The tremor of fear in his voice filled Madeleine with dark excitement. 

Javert turned, displaying his naked back. He was tall and the bed was rather low, so he bent far over. The mass of bruises were now two days old but they looked, if anything, denser and blacker than on the previous night.

"Don't move or speak".

For what Madeleine wanted of Javert, it was easier to have him like this: mute, and facing away.


	18. Chapter 18

Madeleine slid a finger over Javert's hole, and pressed. He felt the muscle clench, keeping him out; he heard a sharp indrawn breath. Withdrawing his finger, he positioned his ready cock. Anticipation made his heart race.

"Relax," he muttered; "it will make it easier." He could hardly control himself. Through the haze of heat he was again touched by Javert's innocence and trust, how he offered up his most vulnerable and tender place to be used, without question. But he pushed this thought away. He did not want to think about Javert: his face or his thoughts or the gasp of pain that had come from him. No. This man was just a shape in the darkness. He could be any man, or not even a man. He was just a body that had put itself at Madeleine's disposal.

He had to do this. After this one last act, his cravings would be satisfied and his madness would be laid to rest. That was the conclusion he had come to. He had developed a malady for Javert. The only cure was to have his fill, just once, and then the sickness would be gone from him. He would again be able to pray with a clear conscience, and things would go back to the way they had been before. 

So he was only doing what he must. But he could not do it and look into Javert's face. Nor could he do it like this - savagely, from behind - unless he convinced himself that this was not really Javert but only a body and nothing more. The darkness and his rising fiery excitement made it easy to convince himself of anything. Anyway, this was for the best. And soon it would be over.

He thrust, but his cock would not enter. The man grunted in pain. He tried again, more forcefully, but gained only a centimeter. The man was holding himself tensely. Madeleine pulled out and repositioned himself before driving forward, certain that his strength would be enough to overcome the resistance of one small tight muscle -- but this time as he forced himself in with blind hot need, the body of the man rocked forward, half-collapsing, and a wounded cry came from him. True, in the dark this could be any man -- but his voice was Javert's voice and the image that sprang into Madeleine's mind was of Javert's face grimacing, Javert's eyes filling with tears. Strangely it was not the Javert of today that appeared before Madeleine in the darkness, but the face of the young man he had known years ago.

The undertow of memory sucked at him. He saw the danger in it. _No. The past is dead._

Four years ago when the inspector had first ridden into Montreuil-sur-Mer and presented his orders at the mairie, Madeleine had flown from disbelief to terror, then to rage. And when Javert had looked straight at him without recognition, Madeleine had felt vast relief. But there had been something else as well: the burn of disappointment.

Over the next weeks he had studied Javert minutely out of the corner of his eye. He noted those things about him that not changed in over twenty years - the upright carriage and wide-planted feet, the level, honest gaze and, horrifyingly, the ever-present cudgel. But also he took note of what was different. No longer did Javert show any hint of curiosity or openness. He made not even the slightest pretense of having human feeling. He was merely a machine that served the law, as Madeleine was a mayor who served his townspeople.

But the person who had yielded to him these past nights - who was this Javert? He was no machine, but a man of flesh and tears. He came humbly to the doorstep; he wanted; he wept; he could be wounded. He submitted, offering up his body with innocent trust. Madeleine had to remind himself that the last time he had believed in this man, he had been betrayed. Javert's eyes had seemed honest but had led him to his destruction. Anyway, all that had gone before was in the past and must stay buried, the way le Cric must stay buried so Madeleine could remain good and continue on the path the Bishop had set him on. Javert was nothing to him now. Come morning he would end this sinful dalliance. But first: he would have one last night to lay old ghosts to rest.

The entrance was hot and soft, and Madeleine pressed his cock to it again. He was maddeningly close - but still it was too tight and his harsh thrusts availed him little, bringing only more pained, suppressed noises that he tried not to hear. In the Bagne he had never done this - but he had heard and seen enough to imagine that the act he planned would be easily accomplished. Water, perhaps. Was that how such things were done?

"Don't move," he commanded.

There was another gasp of pain as he pulled free. A cup of water stood on his nightstand and he dipped a handkerchief in it, ran it along his length, then pressed the wet cloth against the man's hole, making water run down between the spread thighs. The man shivered. Then Madeleine positioned himself and thrust again. This time he was determined to have his way.

The man - _not Javert!_ \- was clearly fighting to hold himself still, but a high whine sounded as Madeleine bore down. He could feel his cock pushing in slowly, could feel the man's resistant muscle slowly giving out. It was-- yes, it was bliss. It was everything he needed. All the thoughts that in daylight tormented him now fled, driven out by ecstasy. As on the previous nights, once more he stood at the gates of heaven.

"No-- please!"

The choked voice was Javert's; there was no denying it. It was Javert who wrenched himself away, gasping, and turned to face Madeleine. Even the unsteady light of the solitary candle was enough to reveal the misery etched in his face. "I cannot; I am sorry; it--". He bit off the words. There was something frightened and broken about the way he held himself. Through the red haze of frustrated desire, Madeleine felt a stab of shame.

"I am sorry," Javert repeated, his head hanging. "I should do better. I should be able to-- But I, I cannot--"

"That's all right," Madeleine muttered.

"We can try again. If you demand it."

"No-- no--" 

"Is there something else--?" Javert spoke in a low beseeching voice. "Something else you want of me, Monsieur?" 

It sickened Madeleine, suddenly - this humble devotion he didn't deserve. Guilt made him vicious. "Call me Valjean," he said. He could not be Madeleine - Madeleine would never do the terrible things he wanted to do to Javert. So he would be Le Cric; it was better that way. "Call me Valjean, and beg for my meat." With a shuddering moan, Javert knelt and opened his mouth like a man awaiting communion, and Madeleine entered him. "I am a beast. A monster and a criminal." he muttered. "An animal. A brute without a soul."

 

When it was done he was freshly horror-struck and tried to make amends. "Let me do something for you," he said in a low voice, helping Javert to his feet. He touched the swollen cock tentatively. But Javert pulled away.

"What I want is not that."

"What then?"

Javert was silent.

Madeleine was still angry - at Javert perhaps, or at himself; he did not know. "I don't allow you to keep any secrets from me," he snapped. "What you want, you must confess."

Javert, looking away, whispered something.

Madeleine's cock stirred to life again. "Good," he said thickly. "You deserve that." He sat on the edge of the bed and spread his thighs for balance, and cracked the knuckles on his right hand. Javert, with a whimper, lay face down across his knees.


	19. lundi, matin

Madeleine walked Javert to the door the next morning. In the hall they encountered Mere Plinet, who remarked that she was sorry the Inspector was feeling poorly again. Outside, the sky was touched by the sweetness of early dawn and the lane was empty and quiet; only the clip-clop of hooves over distant cobbles broke the stillness. In the doorway Javert turned to Madeleine and took up his sore right hand. This time he bent low, pressing his lips into the palm.

After he was gone Madeleine walked in the fields behind his house and tried not to think about what had passed between them in the dark, and what had passed between them long ago.

Javert's stoicism had shattered into sobs more quickly last night than the previous time. Once again, he had ended by sliding to his knees. This time Madeleine had taken Javert's mouth roughly and deeply without holding back. He understood by now that Javert did not want him to hold back. Javert wanted to be used harshly - and by God, if that were what he wanted, Jean le Cric was eager to oblige. Finally he finished and his body calmed, and he raised Javert from the floor and laid him down in bed. He covered Javert like a child and fetched him water, stroking back his hair and holding the cup to his lips. The sight of Javert's limp, trembling body made Madeleine gentle in a way that was new to him. It was not the carefully maintained gentleness he wore as M. Madeleine, but a more honest kind, as if all his bitterness and violence had, for the moment, drained away. Once more Javert, his lids heavy, had reached for his hand. He had drawn back the coverlet briefly to fill his eyes again with the sight of Javert's naked form. Javert's organ was still standing half-engorged and, with a sense of curiosity and wonder, he had touched it. Javert sucked in his breath - a sound that for once connoted pleasure instead of pain. Madeleine had stroked gently, enjoying his ability to bring forth first gasps and then quivering pleas. Finally he had watched by candlelight as Javert contorted, arched his back, and gave a long groan of abandon. Then Madeleine fell back beside him against the pillows. He was pleased with himself. He was pleased, for one heedless instant, with the entire world.

His sleep was dreamless. But when he woke again, still fully dressed beside a naked man, the sky was rimmed with light. Monday had come. And in Arras, Champmathieu was four days from his fate.

Now a fresh breeze blew across the fields, and the rising sun was burning last night's frost from the grass. Madeleine paused at a venerable pear tree which looked in need of a pruner's attention. Taking out the knife that he kept always in his pocket when he went walking, he cut back a few of the weak branches. One of them had a shape that put him in mind of something, and he turned it over in his hands and ran his fingers along it, considering. Then he cut a section and tossed aside the rest. He walked quickly back towards the house, stripping the bark as he went.

 

Javert's uniform fit him as well as every other morning; he was sure of it. He did not know why the fabric itched at him. He was irritable and distracted. He was at work but wanted to be elsewhere. This was a disquieting and unaccustomed feeling, and it must stop. He had his work; that was what mattered. The series of unthinkable incidents between himself and M. le maire bore no relation to his orderly life. They were separate and set aside. He would not think about his body, bruised and swollen, or the things he had allowed the night before, and what he might be made to do when evening came and the mayor undressed him and gave him orders. In the day he must not think about the night.

But his concentration was not as good as it should have been.

"What is it?" he snapped at one of his junior officers.

"Sir, a message. M. Madeleine sends for you."

 

Inside the mairie, Javert nodded to the mayor's attaché. He knocked crisply at the door of the mayor's office.

"Enter, please."

He bowed. "M. le maire."

"Inspector."

The mayor rose. He wore his usual suit of good cloth. His shoulders were no broader than they had been the week before, and his square hands looked the same as ever. But still he seemed a whole different man from the one who had always sat at that desk while Javert made his reports. Today Javert was thinking of being on his knees and having those hands in his hair, while M. le maire's cock forced his throat. 

Outside in the corridor, the attaché was addressing someone officiously. "M. le maire has asked specifically for these figures; surely they are ready! It is a pressing matter. In fact, last night he was working late, tirelessly as always, calculating the accounts--" 

For the briefest of instants, an arch smile touched Javert's lips. Madeleine raised his eyebrows, and a flash of humor passed between the two men.

Then Javert became serious. "You sent for me, sir?"

"Yes," M. Madeleine said. And then, more loudly: "I wish your report on the recent spate of robberies down by the docks. How is the investigation progressing?"

Putting his lips to Javert's ear he whispered, "Over my desk."


	20. Chapter 20

Javert colored, but beyond that, he did not lose his equanimity. His gaze flicked toward the door, beyond which one could still hear Etienne holding forth officiously. His eyes glinted. "Is that a challenge, Monsieur?" he murmured.

Madeleine said, "It is an order." 

A fluttering queasiness overcame Javert, low in his belly. As steadily as he could manage, he said, "May I take it I have not yet been punished to your satisfaction?" 

The word sent a thrill of heat through Madeleine. He murmured, "I have come to believe you are the kind of man who requires frequent correction. You do not seem to progress quickly. In fact, I have heard it said that men like you do not change. Is that not the popular theory?"

"I have heard it somewhere before," Javert allowed. Then he raised his voice and said, "Monsieur le maire, I regret that two more sailors were assaulted last week after leaving taverns in the waterfront district. However, I believe my officers will soon have the culprits in custody." Then, without taking his eyes off Madeleine, Javert bent over the desk. 

Madeleine circled behind him and reached around his waist to loosen and lower his trousers. He ran his fingers down Javert's cleft. "Do not resist me," he said quietly. "Etienne will surely be at my door soon with the post. We must do this quickly - for he does not always remember to knock.". He squeezed Javert's balls lightly, 

Javert was nervous. Etienne was only a few steps down the hall. Also he was very sore from the night, and he could see nothing of what M. Madeleine was doing behind him. He could only wait and trust that it would be all right. But the fear and the trusting, the _belonging_ and the mayor's control and power over him - that was what drew him here. His need was irresistible. The mayor put a small bottle of dark glass down on the desk. 

"Machine lubricant," he said. "From my factory. Hold still."

Something pressed at Javert's hole and he stifled a gasp. It was smooth and cool, rounded like a finger but a little thinner and less yielding. He clenched and fought against it, but it was slippery and the pressure was relentless. He felt the tip of it push past his resistance. "Very good," said the mayor. "Yes. It will hurt."

The object forcing its way into him had a flared shape. The tip had been slimmer than a finger, but the base was thicker, and it burned as it spread him. His body fought with desperate spasms to expel it but it continued to penetrate further, making him feel shamed and helpless. "M. le maire," he said in a pained whisper. "Please-- no-- no more--". But he held himself still. The mayor was observing from behind; he was being exposed in the most intimate way and could not hide. The mayor gripped his waist firmly. The invader forced its way deeper into him as if there would never be an end to it.

"I find you singularly...inflexible," M. Madeleine hissed at his ear. "I am training you to be accommodating. It is my responsibility, is it not, to improve you."

Javert's stretched muscles yielded a little in surrender. The burning pain at his hole diminished slightly, but the sense of intimate violation did not abate. He could feel the rigid length filling him up. He belonged entirely to the mayor now. He had a deep sense of his own weakness beside the mayor's strength. He yearned for a word of comfort from M. Madeleine. He hoped the mayor would stroke him and tell him he had done well. But the mayor remained stern, and this only increased his agonized desire. 

"You'll keep it in until I say otherwise," M. Madeleine said. He drew up two long leather cords which evidently were secured to the base of the object, and wrapped them around Javert's waist and tied them tightly so they dug into his flesh. "Every step you take, it will remind you that you are mine. Tonight you will present yourself at my house at the usual time, and I will see if you have learned the required lesson." He gave the leather cord a sharp upward tug, making Javert gasp. "You may dress. You are dismissed."

M. Madeleine watched coolly as Javert performed the necessary but humiliating act of pulling his drawers up and securing the buttons of his trousers. His movements were stilted, as it was uncomfortable to bend or move quickly. When he was properly attired -- to outward inspection at least -- he bowed as deeply as he could and made to depart. The mayor blocked the door. "You look like a whore," he murmured, reaching out to stroke Javert's anguished cock through the material that covered it. "Everyone will know with one look at you. It shows in your face."

Then in the over-loud voice of earlier, he said, "Thank you, Inspector. You may now return to your post."

Javert's usual long stride was hobbled. He passed Etienne, who gave him a curious look and said, "Something the matter, Inspector?". Javert blushed and shook his head fiercely, but he could feel Etienne's eyes on him as he walked away. 

He did his work as usual. But all day, he could think of nothing but his hidden shame, his need for release, the painful object that was stretching him and making him ready for M. Madeleine, and his desperate craving to be back in those hard, punishing hands. _He is right; I am his whore. I am made to serve him._ The mayor's taunting words came to his mind repeatedly like the flick of a whip, maddening him further as he waited for night to fall.


	21. Chapter 21

Javert arrived at his usual time. Madeleine led him into the bedroom. He had lit the candle already, and it flickered on the mantel. 

Without a word, he went to the nightstand and retrieved an object he had laid their earlier: the pocketknife he had found so useful that morning. Javert came up beside him, hesitantly. He stood a little too close and inclined his body toward Madeleine. He did not speak but his face betrayed a kind of hopeful longing. Madeleine pulled away abruptly. Last night had been supposed to be his final interlude with Javert, but he had not completed the act he intended and thus he had not yet freed himself of the fever in his blood. So he was allowing himself one last meeting. After this, there would be no more. That would be best for Javert too, of course: they would both be freed, and could go on as if none of this had happened.

"Take off everything," he ordered. Javert's face closed up as if a curtain had fallen. He obeyed wordlessly.

 _I am a beast,_ thought Madeleine. But his heat stirred at the sight of Javert, who soon stood naked except for the dark leather cord that encircled his waist. He took up the knife and advanced, while Javert watched him the way a caged rabbit would watch a fox. "Turn around," he said. "Tonight: against the wall." He thrust his knee between Javert's legs to spread them. He drew the back of the cold blade against Javert's warm skin and felt the other man shudder.

The plug of pearwood was slippery. Madeleine's cock was already chafing desperately at his trousers and his conscience was spurring him again. He wanted to get on with it. Adjusting his grip he pulled harder on the severed cords. Javert's breaths were rapid and shallow like a man bearing up under pain. There was a tug of resistance, but the plug began to slide and its length emerged little by little until it came free in Madeleine's hand.

"Now," the mayor breathed, "let's see if you have learned your lesson well." 

_It's not anyone, this man; it's just a body,_ he reminded himself, as he spread the buttocks apart. They clenched at his touch, but in spite of that the hole gaped helplessly. Madeleine pushed in one finger, spellbound. The entrance made weak, futile efforts to defend itself. He pushed in another finger and the man drew in his breath sharply.

"Good," Madeleine said. "Ready for use."

He shoved his trousers down and stroked oil over his ready cock. Then he snuffed out the candle and took hold of his prey in darkness.

Javert was shivering -- maybe from the cold, thought Madeleine, although he himself felt hot. He arranged Javert the way he wanted him, bent forward with his forearms braced against the wall. Then he positioned himself and thrust. The head of his cock met some resistance and he could feel Javert's body still trying to hold him off. He thrust harder. The way parted for him, and he and Javert cried out together as he buried himself to the hilt.

 _Yes; this._ It was exactly what he had imagined, hot and indescribable; it was everything he had wanted and needed. He would get his fill and then he would not have to think of Javert again. 

Madeleine threw one arm around Javert and put his other palm flat against the wall. He rutted blindly. Passion consumed him, with every thrust making him more desperate for the next. He could not think; the entire world was red flame and delirium, and he gave himself to it utterly. Dimly he registered the rhythmic banging and grunts of pain as Javert was slammed against the wall with every thrust. It didn't matter; nothing mattered; there was just this-- and this-- and this-- When the waves of pleasure threatened to peak, he gripped Javert by the shoulders and forced himself in as deep as he could. "Take all of it; take it, take it!". He passed the point of no return. Convulsions gripped his body. He threw back his head and loosed a long groan from the depths of his belly. Delight crashed over him as, at last, he spent himself inside the other man.

Panting and weak-kneed, he remained that way for a few moments, letting the seething heat ebb away. A pleasant leaden sleepiness took him over. Finally he eased out his softening cock. He had barely enough strength left to stumble to the bed and throw himself down. "By God," he moaned, "You have killed me." The bed was soft. It embraced him; he thought he might never rise from it again. Gradually his rough breathing eased and his heart slowed its pounding. His scattered thoughts coalesced.

His trousers were still below his waist; his thighs were sticky, and his hands were slick with oil. He felt for a handkerchief. He was starting to feel vaguely disgusted with himself. He would like to wash up, but right now he lacked the strength to rise.

Well, it was done. The rabid beast in him had been fed and could now be banished to slink back into the depths. Madeleine was now recovered from his madness. And from now on, he would strive even more diligently toward the salvation of his soul. In the morning he would wash and pray. But first he would sleep. 

Something caught his eye. In the darkness he made out the shape of the Inspector, still leaning against the wall with his forehead resting upon it. He had not moved from the spot where Madeleine had put him.

"That was good," Madeleine said. "More than good."

Javert made no answer.


	22. Chapter 22

Javert slumped against the wall where he had been left. He had served his purpose. That was all right, he told himself: that was why he had come.

M. le maire was calling out to him from the bed, but he did not answer. He was too sore and exhausted to mount a response, and it did not matter anyway. His torso and hips had been slammed against the wall repeatedly. More than once, the force of M. Madeleine's frenzy had caused him to strike his forehead as well. His entrance burned. Worst of all, after his long day of suffering and longing for the night, M. le maire had taken what he wanted and then abandoned him like a discarded object. He was sick that he had allowed it. It made him feel young again in the worst way: young and helpless and humiliated. And yet he had done it to himself again. He was not young or naïve, but he had offered himself up.

Of course he was obligated to conceal the fact of his unhappiness, since it was his own fault - he was complicit; had he not come here for exactly this? - and M. le maire would not want to hear of it. But Javert was not accustomed to deception. Honesty was his natural inclination. To hide his feelings, to lie or obfuscate in any way required, for him, a kind of determined strength of mind. And he was afraid that at this particular moment his strength was not equal to the task.

The bed creaked. "Javert?"

"Yes." He felt compelled to answer this time, from politeness.

Silence. Then more creaking; then a rustling sound. Ah - he should have had more faith. M. Madeleine was returning to collect him. The mayor would say something kind, put a hand on his back, and lead him to the bed and lie down beside him. The mayor would put a protecting arm around him, and begin to touch him as he had the night before - in that slow, controlling way, watching while he writhed helplessly in ecstasy. _In a moment, I will hear his feet striking the floor._

M. Madeleine's voice came again, hesitantly, "You are all right?" But there was no more rustling, and M. Madeleine still lay upon the bed.

After a long moment of waiting, Javert said, "Yes."

"All right-- good." There was an awkwardness now in the mayor's tone. Javert, who had worked alongside M. Madeleine for four years, recognized the tone quite well.

Guilt. 

He had long noted that the mayor was prone to guilt. He felt guilt over trivialities: hungry families, injured workers, the fate of whores arrested at cafes. M. Madeleine's misplaced guilt was a chief reason Javert had first suspected him of being other than he claimed to be. He knew _(didn't he?)_ that while a man could bury his secrets deep, guilt would stand forever as a bloody signpost, marking the spot.

After a long while, the mayor spoke again. "You can come lie down here, if you want."

These were something like the words Javert had hoped for, but the phrasing did not please him. In fact, if he were a man of feeling, he would have felt wounded. But, he reminded himself sternly, he was not such a man.

The wall was cool and solid. It was good to have something dependable to lean on. He might stay here all night. He pondered this idea. On the one hand it did not seem that M. Madeleine particularly wanted him to lie down upon the bed. On the other hand, to lie beside M. Madeleine was possibly better than remaining against this wall, bruised and tired, until daybreak. He would have to move from the wall by sunrise anyway - or rather, before sunrise, since he did not want M. le maire to see his unhappy expression in the light. So really, he might just as well move from the wall now.

He limped across the room. The dark hump under the coverlet showed that the mayor had flung himself down in the center of the bed. He circled around to the far side, and made use of the slice of mattress that the mayor was not requiring. He climbed in quietly and lay on his back. His bruises hurt and his hole burned. He had liked the suffering and humiliation the mayor had inflicted on him at the mairie, and the feeling all day of being secretly owned and punished by M. le maire, but the pain and humiliation he felt now was a very different kind. He could not see any choice but to get used to it. His cock still throbbed with complaint, but he did not dare touch it. Nor did he dare touch the mayor, who was apparently resting and might not want to be disturbed.

A few minutes later M. Madeleine again said, "Javert," in an uncertain tone, and propped himself up on one elbow. Javert continued to regard the ceiling, though there was little there to interest him. Once again he was not sure that the mayor required a response.

The mayor's hand slid over his hip and found his cock, which was still half-hard. It had been slowly deflating since the mayor pulled out of him. Without a word, M. Madeleine began sliding his hand back and forth along Javert's length somewhat mechanically, as if working a pump. His hand was slippery with oil. Javert felt his body respond as expected -- though it was almost painful, after waiting so long -- but he continued to stare at the ceiling. He could not summon the will to do more.

Eventually a feeling of urgent anticipation returned, and his cock grew fully hard and long again. He wished for the thing to happen quickly before M. Madeleine grew tired of continuing his efforts. Finally it came, welling up inside him and erupting in a sudden rush. Javert absorbed the hot sensation as quietly as he could, sucking in his breath as his muscles contracted and released in tight spasms. He let out his breath in a long hiss. Then he quieted himself again.

M. Madeleine withdrew his hand and felt about on the nightstand. Presumably he was finding a handkerchief. 

Javert closed his eyes but did not sleep. In a few minutes the long, even breaths coming from the other side of the bed made it apparent that whatever guilt had temporarily afflicted M. Madeleine, had been successfully assuaged.


	23. mardi, matin

Madeleine came awake by degrees. The first thing he knew was that he was warm and satisfied. His bed was warm, and the naked man beside him was warm as well. It was still dark. His nose was pressed between the man's shoulder blades, his arm thrown around the other's chest. He curled in closer. The man beside him had his long body turned away from Madeleine. His shape was graceful and sinewy. 

Something was wrong. He should not be in bed, his guard down, in the presence of another. His mind registered a dim warning. He drew away. 

But like a cat drawn to the fire, Madeleine found the warmth of the body beside him irresistible. He eased close to it again. Distantly it came to him that this was Javert, who had been beside him in this bed before. What was the harm? He pressed his nose again where it had been, against the strong back. He breathed in the Inspector's scent. Drowsily he ran his hand gently over the silky skin, enjoying his possession of it. Lazily he wondered what it might taste like. Salty, perhaps. The inspector gave no sign of waking, and so Madeleine pressed his lips against the muscle of his shoulder. 

The other man stirred and turned towards him with a groan, but his eyes did not open. Madeleine, emerging from his haze of sleepy contentment, studied him with a smile. He was amazed by the ferocious pulse of life that ran through Javert: heat and breath and strength; the incoherent word muttered with harshness into the blanket, the jerk of a shoulder, the quick twitch of a foot. Even in his sleep, restless energy thrummed through him. Madeleine had forgotten, almost, what Javert was. A chief inspector of police. A dangerous man.

Memories made in darkness returned little by little. _The night. Against the wall, he had--_ His eyes flew open, and he jerked away as if scorched by Javert's skin. 

He was lying beside Javert, wearing slept-in clothes stained with fluids. A bit of light painted the horizon, marking the line between earth and sky, and outlining the shabby tenements by the pier. And in Arras-- 

Contentment fled. Madeleine sat bolt upright.

 

Javert, true to his profession and his nature, sprang from sleep to full alertness without lingering between the two. He sat up as well, drawing the coverlet over his naked lap.

"Monsieur le maire," he said with customary formality. 

Madeleine's mind was in disarray. He voiced the terrible thought that was uppermost in his mind. "It's Tuesday."

"It is." 

Madeleine hesitated. "You'll be leaving for Arras soon.". 

If Javert was thrown by the mayor's words, he did not show it. "Yes, monsieur. I leave Thursday afternoon; I have engaged a tilbury, as it is a journey of twenty leagues. I will return Friday, directly I've given my evidence."

"Suppose-- suppose I don't want you to go."

Javert recoiled a little and appeared dumbstruck. 

"But," he said at last. "I must go. My testimony is required."

"But if I asked you to show mercy - to let the man go free. It is not such a bad thing, for a hungry man to steal. A desperate man cannot help what he is driven to."

"Monsieur," said Javert. He looked baffled and unhappy. "What you ask, cannot be done. It is a matter of law. May I know your reason for wanting to stay me from my duty?"

Madeleine said, in a studiously careless way, "I suppose it is because the man has my face, and thus my sympathy. I do find myself wondering if he deserves the fate you will send him to. To take some apples and go to prison for the rest of his life--" He shrugged. "Come, Javert. Be reasonable."

"With due respect, M. le maire, you and I continue to have differing opinions about justice. But if you will forgive me for saying it: the trial does not concern a municipal ordinance, so in this matter I answer not to you but to the laws of France. I must testify. The criminal belongs behind bars."

"You know," Madeleine mused as if he had not heard, "it strikes me that only by luck and circumstance am I a mayor and he a man awaiting trial. A different bend in the road or toss of the coin, years ago perhaps, and he might be in my place today -- or I in his."

Javert looked deeply shocked.

"M. le maire! you do yourself an injustice there. You are a law-abiding man, whereas the prisoner is not. This is a matter not of circumstance but nature. He has the criminal mind and you do not; you could not! No circumstances would change this; many men are born into hard conditions and do not use this as an excuse to prey on society. I too was not favored by the circumstances of my birth, but I have stayed on the right side of the law. Even in my life, my career, I have had misfortunes the same as any man. My first job was as a guard at Toulon, and I had planned to stay, perhaps forever - but then-- well-- 'circumstances' arose." He lifted his chin. "I had to leave my position quite suddenly. I had no family, nothing to fall back on. I spent two years in difficult straits before I was able to start over in Paris as an officer of the law. But I can tell you: though I had nothing and was often hungry, never did I consider turning to crime."

Madeleine started. "You had trouble at Toulon?" he murmured. "I never knew that. What made you leave?"

The Inspector looked uncomfortable and his eyes slid away from Madeleine. He stared down at the coverlet and plucked at a loose thread. "It is a long story," he muttered.

"Tell me. Truly, I would like to hear it."

For a moment Javert did not answer. Then, with effort, he squared his naked shoulders and faced the mayor. "I will not lie," he answered finally. "I came under suspicion. It was alleged that I had abetted the escape of a prisoner. In fact, the same man now held at Arras. Jean Valjean."


	24. Chapter 24

"M. le maire, are you all right?"

Madeleine pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. "Yes. Of course. It is just -- I suppose something caught in my throat." Immediately he turned away toward the mantel and, keeping his back to Javert, picked up the candle there. It had burned down to a stub in the night and he turned it in his hands, digging his nail into the soft pooled wax to free the wick. His mind turned in wild circles on itself.

It had been spring, the start of his fifth year at Toulon. All through April the convicts had been herded out to the edge of town to dig ditches for irrigation. As the work dragged on, summer's onslaught had come early, its arrival heralded by unbearable, swampish heat and a torment of bloodsucking flies. Every day another convict fell ill and fainted, and was dragged away to the side of the road and kicked or clubbed until he regained his senses. But a little way beyond the worksite lay a stretch of wooded hillside, with farmers' fields flanking it on both sides, and Valjean had gazed out on this countryside as if it were the promised land. The woods were dense, and it seemed to him that if the guards were distracted, and a man could get a running start-- It would not be easy. He was not fit; for it had been two months since the savage beating he had taken from Javert at the flogging post, and still he still suffered headaches and dragged his right leg. But he waited and watched for his chance.

He had built a world of dreams around Javert, a man he had thought was just and kind. Javert had restored his hope that the world would be fair to him: that if he waited and served out his sentence, then the prison gates would swing open and he would be allowed to return home to his family. It was a terrible punishment, five years for a loaf of bread, but he was a strong man and a patient one, and he was willing to endure it.

But that morning at the flogging post had ended his illusions. There was no justice. The gates would never open for him. Javert, who had once represented authority as everything good and just, now proved it to be everything perfidious. And this opened Valjean's heart to bitterness, which spread like a strangling vine to destroy his soul. Having no more hope in justice, he no longer saw reason to be patient and obey the prison rules. He now saw things no differently from any caged beast: show him an open door, and he would run.

When opportunity arose one afternoon, he seized it without a thought. Gunshots smashed into the trees around him, and he hurled himself deeper into the shadowed woods. He knew a moment of exultation as the shouts of the guards faded behind him. Soon, though, terror took him over. He was now a hunted animal who might be killed on sight by any man. In desperation, he made his way that night to a shed in a nearby field, hoping to find a weapon he could use against his pursuers. He was still huddled there two days later when the guards and their dogs ran him to ground. "Four more years, you filthy cur!" he was told, as they beat him. The words meant nothing to him, because what was four years added to eternity? After they dragged him back, they chained him in the prison yard and beat him again with all the convicts watching. After that he was put in double-chains and hurled into a dark hole lined by brick. Sometimes food was shoved in to him. The walls leaked; this was his only water. He did not know how long he stayed there, but when they came to lead him out he was almost too weak to walk. He stood shakily in the sunlight, squinting, unable to believe the blueness of the sky.

They put him back on the chain right away, but his body was weakened and the work took a heavy toll. He fell exhausted every night onto the wood plank that served as a bed. One day another convict mentioned that the young guard Javert must have been transferred. He spat on the ground when he heard the name. So, the monster had been promoted, had he? He hated Javert - and yet Toulon seemed more forlorn without him. He spat again and stared at the black prison gate, as if bitterness and hatred could melt its iron bars. Guards came and they beat you as they pleased and they left as they pleased. They were free as gulls. But men like him? Men like him were here forever. 

Madeleine had left furrows all along the candle. Now he set it down and stooped to gather Javert's clothes, keeping his body turned to conceal his face. He could not understand why Javert been blamed for his escape. It had been a different guard who was assigned the watch over his section of the chain - the fool Natellier, a talker, who could be depended on to pay little attention to his work. Yet it was Javert who had lost his position over it. He had been driven out and had gone through hard times, and for over twenty years Madeleine had known nothing of this. It was like what had happened to poor Fantine - whom he had ruined without knowing it.

Madeleine handed Javert his clothes and turned his back to afford the Inspector some privacy. 

"It strikes me," he said after a while, "that there are a lot of things I don't know about you."

"There is not much to know, monsieur."

"I begin to wonder," he answered slowly.

Having waited a few minutes, he turned back to look at Javert. The other man, however, had not dressed. In fact his uniform lay untouched beside him. He was bare-chested, and the coverlet draped over him in a haphazard way that revealed his muscular thighs and the curls of fur on his lower belly. 

He was gazing at Madeleine with the same unconcealed hope that had shone in his face the night before, when they had entered the bedroom together and Javert had leaned towards him in the dark. 

_Ask me and I'll tell you,_ his face said. _Ask me everything._

Madeleine understood his look. Javert was a man who longed to give up all his secrets -- to him, a man who hid his prison scars beneath his suit, and lied every time he spoke his name. Javert's candor reminded him of the difference between them. Sickened, and he turned away. 

"It's getting late," he said roughly. "You'd best get dressed."

On the doorstep, Javert hesitated. His uniform was still impeccable, his hat correct and his cudgel, as always, under his arm -- but honesty and need still mingled in his features, in a way that struck Madeleine as pitiful. "You do understand, M. le maire, why I must go to Arras? I swear to you, I would defer to your wishes if it were possible. But in this matter--"

"In this matter, you have your duty. Yes. I understand your way of thinking very well, Inspector."

Javert reddened at the implicit rebuke. He stumbled on. "I am afraid you still blame me for imposing a jail sentence on the _fille publique_ who attacked M. Bamatabois. I know you have ideas about mercy -- and mercy is all well and good when dispensed from Heaven -- but here on Earth, society lives by rules. If the guilty are not held and punished, they will only be encouraged to devour us all, like wolves."

Madeleine remembered his terror at the flogging post, when his arms were chained above his head and Javert advanced on him with a truncheon and a feral smile. 

"Any man can be termed a wolf, if he abuses his strength and power over another," he said coldly. "What about you, Inspector? In your long career enforcing the law, have you never done such a thing?" His heart hammered. He would not keep silent any longer. The wounds of the past, that had not been probed for twenty years, festered still. He wanted justice. "At Toulon, for example: Did you ever, perhaps, beat a man who was chained and helpless and had done no wrong -- for no reason other than your pleasure?" 

Javert paled, drew in a sharp breath, and threw a quick, shocked look at the mayor. It lasted only a moment, but Madeleine was sure of what he saw.

Then Javert recovered and drew himself up. "No," he said. "Never."


	25. mardi, soir

Madeleine seethed. 

Over breakfast he ate with his head down, staring at his plate while Mere Plinet bustled and clucked and wondered aloud if he had caught the lingering sickness that had been plaguing Inspector Javert. Out in the street, a knot of children approached shyly in hopes that coins or sweets would be forthcoming; but one look at his black expression and they scattered. Then, in the factory, the foreman approached oozing his usual oily charm, but Madeleine interrupted him. “I must go. I have things to attend to.” 

En route to the mairie his eye was caught by a shop on the Rue St-Jeanne. He slammed coins down on the counter. “Have this delivered to my home, with a message to my housekeeper.” He turned on his heel and stalked out angrily; the shopgirl did not know what to make of him.

 _Javert._

Javert, the honest man. So honest he had presented himself to be dismissed over a mistake. Who had lain across Madeleine’s lap; who had wept brokenly; who had let Madeleine put him ruthlessly against a wall; who had awoken warm and naked in Madeleine’s bed; who had gazed at him with candor and undisguised yearning and had spoken of justice. 

_Javert the liar. Javert the false._ Almost, he had let this man fool him a second time. 

The day was unseasonably cold and towards evening a hard wind arose, driving icy beads of rain before it. Perhaps Javert would not come; maybe this madness had run its course. That would be for the best, thought Madeleine, trying to convince himself. He was nervous. 

However, Javert came. The knock was heard at the accustomed hour and Madeleine’s heart lurched with a mixture of fear and triumph. Of course Javert had come; Javert would always come. It was like a sickness, with Javert. 

“It’s a cold night,’ Madeleine remarked. “Sit with me by the fire.”

They sat, and Madeleine fidgeted and watched Javert with a gaze narrow as a cat‘s, and Javert shifted uneasily. Waiting. Feeling, evidently, that it was the mayor's place to lead the conversation.

Madeleine burst out, “Yes, I am still thinking of that poor man whom you intend to send to prison.”

Javert said quietly, “I thought as much.”

“He is poor, is he not? You said he was arrested stealing apples, so he must be poor. And this is your idea of justice: that a man should be condemned to such a fate for such a crime. For being hungry.” 

“No, Monsieur le maire; not for that. Must we continue to discuss it? It distresses me to argue with you.”

“Yes. We must.”

“If that is your wish.” Javert looked unhappy. “The man belongs in prison not because he is hungry but because he is a thief and a recidivist and he has broken parole. If he wished to avoid prison, he should have been more scrupulous to avoid crime.”

“You think it is always so easy?”

“I think it is a choice. Every man must choose -- and take the consequences that follow.”

“Men get pushed into things they did not intend. And men sometimes falter, even good men. Even you, Javert: You denounced a magistrate falsely, did you not? That is a graver matter than the theft of some winter apples.”

Javert said slowly, “I did not hide my fault. I confessed and asked to be dealt with. And,” he added in a low voice, “I have not shirked from the consequences sent my way.” 

“Maybe if you found them less pleasant,” said Madeleine darkly. Javert colored. “But what if the consequence of your crime was prison and hard labor? Would you still have come to me with your confession if it meant you would end in Toulon?” 

“Yes.”

“Just like that.”

“I do not say I would welcome it. But I would submit to the law. I could do no less.”

“And you would never cry out that the law is too harsh? That mercy should temper its application?”

“In my life, I have never been put to the test. But I hope that I would not.”

The look Madeleine threw him was shrewd and hooded. “And for your crime of denouncing me: you have already agreed I am the law over you, and I may set the punishment? So between us it is the same as it is for any criminal standing before his judge: If I decide to make your sentence a more difficult one, you will still submit-- and call no punishment too harsh-- and ask no mercy--" 

Javert’s gaze was rapt, his face sober. He gave a slow nod.

“Good,” Madeleine snarled. From under his chair he produced a package wrapped in paper. “Open it.”

Javert rent the paper and pulled out a length of red cloth. He shook it out. Then he frowned and looked up. “But-- it is a red smock…?” he said wonderingly.

“Tonight we put you to the test,” said Madeleine.


	26. Chapter 26

Javert rose, and the fire threw a red glow upon him as he removed his coat and laid it aside. He saw no need to go to the bedroom. Mere Plinet was in her room until morning -- and really, didn’t Javert belong in this home by now, as much as any other servant of M. Madeleine? He pulled off his boots and drew the red smock on over his head. He was pleased that it was made of the correct material: coarse, cheap and durable, it would not rot easily in saltwater nor be spoiled by the pounding sun. It would serve well during heavy labor and dry quickly. It could last a convict three years. 

“My trousers are the wrong color,” Javert said softly. “At Toulon, the prisoners wear yellow.” Madeleine nodded. His hands went to Javert’s waist. 

Javert, half-hard already, longed for the touch of those hands. He held himself very still; his hopes swelled. But M. Madeleine's hands merely pulled off his trousers roughly. Javert felt small and ignored -- but this was right. He had always been undeserving of the mayor‘s attentions. M. Madeleine threw the trousers aside. 

Javert said, “There should be a cap. Red for most; green for the life sentence.” 

Madeleine pointed to the torn paper cast aside on the floor; and indeed a cap -- red -- lay in its folds. “I have seen illustrations,” Madeleine explained, picking it up. Javert nodded. He could see that the cap was not quite right, but still, the effect was close. He bent his head to receive it. 

“Fetch your chains,” said Madeleine.

Javert went obediently to his greatcoat, and from an inner pocket he withdrew the pair of manacles he kept there, and the key. He stood with his wrists out while M. Madeleine snapped the irons into place. It crossed Javert's mind to marvel that the mayor was remarkably adept with them, as if he were familiar with their use. But then again, this was no surprise. The mayor was good at everything he set his hand to. That was how he and other like him differed from men like Javert himself. M. Madeleine was full of grace; he had been blessed by God from the moment of his birth. It showed in his burnished skin and suffused everything he touched. Javert, on the other hand, was born out of favor with God and man. He had therefore trained himself to become worthy of earning it. This required intense study of the rules of right and wrong. He had always lived in fear of making mistakes. 

When Javert was very young he had had trouble understanding why some boys lived outside prison walls. He watched them from the prison-yard while they chased each other in the street. They were out there and free, while he lived behind bars. After the death of his mother he had been transferred to a state orphanage; there, his understanding of the world grew more sophisticated. But still he was plagued by questions. Why did God give some children homes and parents, and others a crumbling building of ninety boys and narrow beds and nuns with sticks, where the strongest and cruelest children won out over the weak? 

He had set himself to understanding this puzzle. He had come to love Justice because it explained away all inequities. The misfortunes of his birth were a test from God, he believed. He had to prove himself worthy. If he stayed on the right side of the law and worked to better himself and never faltered, God would approve of him. Someday he would put his prison childhood behind him. He would become not one of the miserable ones, but an upright man who moved among them keeping order. These had been his intentions when he set out for Toulon. He would by strong and good, even among fallen men. No taunting from the world, no weakness in his nature, would be allowed to pull him down from righteousness.

“Better,” said Madeleine. “How do you feel?”

Javert felt raw, as if the accumulated armor of all his years was being ripped away, leaving him bare. He had nothing to hide anymore and nothing left to lose, and this was a great relief. “I will submit to the law. You want to know if I am your prisoner, and I tell you that I am.” He smiled softly. “You may get on with it.”


	27. Chapter 27

Madeleine had thought it would be a triumph to see Javert dressed like this. Instead it was a terror. 

Before him stood a convict with his hands chained, resignation in his face. It was as if one of Madeleine's own nightmares had risen in the flesh to haunt him before his own fire. 

He had worn the uniform of shame for nineteen years. He had been free of it for nine - but not completely free, because his memories and his limp would always be with him. It had seemed just to put Javert in the red smock. Javert was a liar, a hypocrite who spoke of justice. The sentence Madeleine had intended to impose would be laughably brief, and the whole affair was made meaningless by Javert's certainty that morning would bring release. Really, it was only a shabby parody of the nineteen years Madeleine had spent a slave. But it was, at least, _something._ It would give Madeleine a shred of satisfaction for what he had suffered at this liar's hands. 

This is what he had thought. But now that Javert stood before him in this hideous costume, it was not satisfying. It was only frightening, and it was breaking his heart. 

_I used to dream I dined with you in a cottage that looked like home._

_You gave me hope the world could be fair to me._

_I never wanted it to end like this._

He had dreamt of how it would go on the day he earned his parole. Javert would have him to his house; there would be a fire in the grate and a dog before the fire. There would be wine, and the guard would lift his glass. "To survival," he would say. "To freedom." And Valjean in turn would toast the Toulon guard and say - if he had the nerve - "To you." Then they would drink. They would talk, staying up late at the table. They would take turns speaking of their hopes. Javert would confess that he had always had the same dream as Valjean: a quiet life in the countryside; a rough cottage among the trees. A window that did not look out on prison gates. 

Madeleine surveyed Javert in the red smock - and his heart broke for the plans and cloud-castles he had built long ago that had not come true; for the way the roads had twisted under their feet, his and Javert's both, taking them so far from what he dreamed back then. Leading them, finally, back to this. Back to Toulon, which Madeleine still dragged behind him like a clanking corpse on an iron chain.

Aloud he said, “But is your uniform complete? It seems to me some things still lack.”

Javert nodded gravely. “You are right. A leg-iron goes around the right ankle. It has a side-ring through which a chain can be passed, to secure prisoners against the chance of escape. But,” he murmured with the shadow of a smile, “that is not something I carry in my coat.”

Beside the fireplace hung a coat of rough leather, such as shepherds used in that part of France. M. Madeleine pulled out his small knife. “We will make do,” he said. He cut a strip of leather and bound it around Javert’s ankle. “What else?” he asked.

Javert’s answer was slow in coming; his face showed a struggle. But eventually, he brought up his hands together and raised them to his throat. “The collar,” he said in a low voice.

“The collar! Of course. A heavy burden for any man, but necessary. Because it is the law! And what should it be made of, this collar?”

“It is of iron, monsieur.”

“And again, I suppose your pockets are not able to provide what is needed? Then I cannot do justice to the proper uniform of Toulon. But no matter. You will have to tolerate a gentler version. I hope you are not offended by this. After all it is not meant as the mercy you despise; merely necessity.” He took his knife to the leather jacket again, and cut a strip of leather long enough to go three times around Javert’s neck. He was careful to make it neither too tight nor too loose.

“Do you feel properly attired now, Inspector?”

Javert closed his eyes briefly. He had had dreams like this -- the finger pointing at him, the failure, the plunge into ignominy when the blue uniform was torn from him and a red one put in its place. It was not entirely unexpected. He had been born in prison. In a way he had been anticipating this, and dreading it, all his life. Everything felt very right, yet at the same time, horrifying. But he must be strong. 

“Yes, monsieur le maire.”

“I am not sure a prisoner should be addressed as ‘Inspector,’ however,” remarked Madeleine.

“No, monsieur. The prisoners are addressed only by number or surname.”

“You shall have a number, then. Choose it yourself, if you like. Any will do. One number or another; what does it matter? Each is as meaningless as the next, because a prisoner is not a person anymore, just a numbered piece made only for labor and to be ground down -- I suppose that is the point, in a place like Toulon? Go ahead, then. Choose.”

Javert nodded. He did not hesitate. “24601,” he said.


	28. Chapter 28

_M. Madeleine looks gray; he steps back and puts a hand to his throat. I cannot think what I have said wrong. It is only a number. A harmless secret; a little joke._

_Why did I choose it? No reason of import. Simply because it is the number uppermost in my thoughts. It happens to be the old prison number of that cursed man in Arras, who has been much on my mind of late, and whom I will soon be sending to his proper fate. When someone says, “Quick now! Think of a number!” -- well, like any man I name that one which has recently passed through my thoughts. That is all._

_But also there is this:_

_I do not like to tell him so, but M. Madeleine is wrong about many things. He was wrong when he claimed one number is the same as the next. The trinity, for example, is a number full of meaning. And is it not said in a psalm that God numbereth the stars -- the stars! -- and in the Gospel it is said he numbers also the hairs on one's head. And 24601 -- this too is a number with meaning, though not to the mayor. It is a number that once meant everything to me. So I will take Valjean's number as mine, and I will have my private joke behind the mayor's back. I would never mock M. le maire, not out loud -- but as he will not understand the humor, there is no harm in amusing myself a little. In a little while I will go to Arras, and then at last I will rid myself of the treacherous creature who lured me to my destruction. But before I send him back to the place he belongs, I will have this night to speak his number out loud one last time, in memory. 24601._

_There is also this:_

_If I am to be beaten now as a prisoner is beaten -- as I am sure is M. Madeleine‘s intention -- then by rights Valjean should be beaten alongside me. He is the reason for all this. If only he had been an honorable man, imagine how different things could have been! And so when the mayor scourges me, and says, “Take this, 24601 -- and this, and another!” Valjean will stand with me._

_And I will not cry out for mercy. A wrongdoer has no claim on mercy. Without hesitation do I give myself up to M. le maire, for I wronged him and he is my superior, and also I-- I am called in a way I can't resist, to put myself at his feet. However: his ideas are not my ideas. He sneers at justice, the law, the prisons where lawbreakers receive their due. He is, of course, a man of mercy, and so he hates the thought of Valjean being convicted as a recidivist, which carries the life sentence. But he was wrong to ask me to violate my duty and forego testifying. He is wrong also to criticize Toulon -- wrong and blind, for at Toulon criminals are kept apart from generous men like him whom they would be delighted to prey upon. Because Toulon exists, gentlemen like him walk safely in Montreuil-sur-Mer with full pockets and no knife at their backs. At Toulon there was injustice, yes - but this was due not to the law, which is perfect, but only to the weaknesses found in men. M. Madeleine is all I want, and yet he mocks the work I have given my life to. I am gladly his prisoner, and it is his right to abase me all the way back to the prison-mud from which I sprang. But he is still wrong about many things and I cannot pretend to change for him. I give him my body and my soul and my heart. But a man’s mind -- that is a territory that cannot be conquered, I think. Not even by love._

_I would tell him everything. But he does not want to know the world I have walked in and the viciousness of men like Valjean. I cannot speak to him about my past. But I will say the cursed number. It is all that I am free to say._

_So that is a lot of the truth. But is it the whole truth? No, I cannot lie. There is one thing more._

_It is this: An honest man must face his crimes and takes his punishment:_

_Once, at Toulon, a thing happened. And tonight the scales will be balanced. Tonight a man in a red smock, a man called 24601, will again take his place at the flogging post. He will again be beaten and broken. Only this time, while the real Valjean sleeps in Arras, my own body will take the blows in his place. I will see to it that M. le maire does the job thoroughly and well. And there will be, at long last, justice._

_And now M. Madeleine smiles in a strained way. He asks, “But why? Why that number, of all numbers?”_

_I would like to tell him everything, but I know he does not really care to hear my history. So I will tell him the truth, but only that part which is easily understood:_

_It is the prison number of the ex-convict Valjean; merely the number uppermost in my thoughts at present. For I will soon be going to Arras._


	29. Chapter 29

_By Christ the Martyr._

_I ask for a number and he gives me my own. 24601: a number that I carried for nineteen years, that chained me more than the iron collar they put on me. Am I to believe his explanation: that 24601 is simply the number that first sprang to his mind? Or are there more lies and secrets here -- from this man whose word cannot be trusted; who turns like a fox; who despite his honest eyes is never what he seems?_

_I was once stupid enough to trust in him. I am not so stupid now. And yet, the past few nights have been sweeter than I ever intended. With him alone, I can take off the mask of pious Madeleine for a little while. He accepts the savage that lurks inside me, and when I pour my violence upon him until he breaks and then tenderness rushes into me, it is the closest thing I have ever felt to heaven. And he still looks at me with the open gaze I well remember. He still has eyes that say: Ask me everything._

_If only I could tell him my own secrets - my name, the truth about Toulon - and hear him say he understood and it would stay between us!_

 _But of course, that is not Javert. He would die before he forgives a criminal. And it is worse now because he was right to denounce me as Valjean, and ever since his apology I have punished and humiliated him under false pretenses. He confessed to an imagined crime against me. I have been committing a true one against him._

_Listen; those are the steeple bells! How fast the hours fly. And on Friday a man will stand before the assizes court, and I-- I must do whatever it takes to save him. That is what makes this right. I am doing this not for revenge but only to hammer some understanding into Javert. I am only trying to teach him what I know of Toulon and the twisted joke that men call justice, in the hope that he will learn mercy. And in this way, perhaps the wretch in Arras will be spared._

_May God forgive me._


	30. Chapter 30

Madeleine kept his thoughts to himself. He cut another long strip of leather from the coat by the fireplace and looped it through Javert’s collar. “The chain should be iron too, should it not? The weight should drag at your neck like a stone. However, this will have to do. Come.” He tugged hard and turned on his heel, Javert stumbling behind him into the bedroom. Madeleine led his prisoner to a bedpost and tied him securely. Javert stood tall, his eyes wide and dark and unafraid. 

“In two days’ time you will go to Arras, and your testimony will send this Valjean to prison. And he will be dressed somewhat like you. But prison will not be as pleasant a place as this, will it? -- with a rug underfoot and a fire crackling in the next room. What is the life of a man set to hard labor? Have you thought about his suffering, his degradation? Ever? Even for an instant?”

“He will work,” said Javert evenly. “It is not a bad fate. Men are meant for honest work.”

“But men are not meant to work in chains. And -- I suppose -- that is how it is done, in places like Toulon?”

“Yes.”

“And this Valjean. When he is herded with the others into the place where he must sleep: will he be chained then, as well?”

“Of course. Each man is chained from his leg-iron to the plank, every night.”

“And what is the purpose of keeping a man chained in his sleep?" Madeleine demanded. "Besides torment and humiliation?”

Javert raised his eyebrows. “To prevent escape, naturally.”

“But is it not true -- as I have heard -- that prisoners sleep together in a hall, penned in by a locked door that is most probably iron, and the door likely gives out onto a yard, which is surrounded by a wall, with armed guards posted at the ready? Therefore please tell me why such men are kept chained even in their miserable dreams? Who would try to escape in the night, against such odds?”

Javert almost snorted, but caught himself. “With respect, Monsieur, you have no experience in the matter. In fact, I remember a time when there was a nighttime escape. It occurred some six months after I arrived at Toulon to assume my post. A prisoner slipped out of his irons, breached the door of the sleeping hall, and gained the yard and the side wall of the prison. But the guards were alert, and the escapee was shot dead at the last moment, as he climbed.”

 _Him!_ The man's face came back to Madeleine. His name was Montmartre, a man from the Midi; he had been olive-skinned and too thin for his height. He whistled constantly between his teeth, and had a persistent cough that sapped his strength. The cherub on his left biceps had been tattooed on the day his youngest child was born -- ‘my angel,’ he called her -- his first daughter after four sons. He had received a three-year term for poaching, and had been just months from his release when he ran in the night. It had been strange and inexplicable: one night he was bragging about some scheme he had hatched which would put him on light duty til his parole, and then, that same week: shot dead.

“So, apparently his leg-iron was useless in that instance anyway,” Madeleine said. “Which begs the question--” He stopped and looked at Javert with curiosity. “What is wrong?”

Javert was frowning. Despite the red smock and cap and the leather straps that lashed him to the bedpost, he now looked nothing like a convict. As they spoke of Toulon, he had again assumed the bearing of a police inspector. He shook his head and said, slowly. "No. I spoke wrongly, just now."

Madeleine stared at him in confusion. "How so?"

“I went to the Director about it at the time,” Javert muttered. 

Toulon's Director of Corrections was never seen on the prison grounds; no one knew what he looked like. It was rumored he was the nephew of a high government official who was owed a favor, and that he kept an office somewhere in the wealthy part of town. However, it was the captain of the guards, a man named Joire, who truly ran the prison. Madeleine could think of no reason why Javert would have troubled himself to locate and run down the absentee prison director over a matter as straightforward as the killing of an escaping prisoner. 

"Explain yourself. I am curious."

"It was an internal matter." The inspector was looking straight ahead with a stony expression, and seemed reluctant to speak further. "Toulon was-- It was not run according to the standards that should have been upheld. I was there less than one year, but I saw things. Things that--" He broke off.

"Continue."

Javert spoke hesitantly. The words seemed to cost him effort. "While I was there, not every guard did honor to the uniform. As for the prisoner I am remembering-- well, an irregularity occurred. That is to say, a crime. Leading to his death." 

“Javert,” Madeleine said carefully. He had no idea to what Javert referred, but he was seized with curiosity. “We are discussing the reasons for leg irons and security at Toulon. I find I am very interested. After all, you are describing the life to which this poor soul in Arras may be condemned. Tell me about this prisoner. Tell me about his death.”


	31. Chapter 31

“I knew the man,” Javert said, half to himself. “and I thought the story strange. On work details, I had often been assigned to watch his section of the chain. He was a poor worker, lazy, full of excuses. And he was a schemer, but not bold and not particularly clever. He had a minor lung complaint. He was only three months’ shy of his release. They said he had been shot climbing the wall -- but to me it made no sense.”

Yes, Madeleine recalled distantly. That had been his own feeling at the time. Montmartre was not a man to run, and none of the other prisoners knew anything about it - he had not asked anyone for help. Yet the next morning revealed that his irons had been removed as by an expert locksmith, and the iron door of the sleeping hall had not only been opened but locked fast again behind him. "You had doubts," he prompted.

Javert looked up. “Yes. The body had been wrapped in canvas and put in a shed. The custom was to haul the dead out to sea for burial. It was to be done that evening after the prisoners were secured in their sleeping quarters. I took the opportunity to examine the corpse. The man had been shot cleanly in the temple, and at such close range that powder-burns were visible. The story about him climbing the wall was a lie. That is why I saw the director.” He shook his head again. “I have not thought of it in years.“

“Then you did not believe the story told of his escape?” Madeleine tried to affect a tone of idle curiosity.

“It was obvious that he had been taken from his bed and shot deliberately. Only the night-duty guards could have done it. The evidence suggested it had been planned in advance, and that more than one guard had acted in concert.”

“So that is why you went to the director! To accuse those guards of murder.” 

Javert's troubled expression lightened for an instant as the hint of a smile touched his features. “Only you, M. le maire, would refer to the execution of a convict as ’murder.’ It is nothing of the kind. However, it is indeed an unlawful act, except where permitted by penal regulations. Like all convicts, this man was the property of the French government; his labor had value, and so to kill him without authority represented a kind of theft from the Crown. And also--” He broke off.

“And also?”

Javert said slowly, “Some crimes are punishable by execution, but first-offense poaching is not one of them.” His eyes were hard. “The man had been sentenced to three years. To take more than that from him was not just. The guards involved had abused their authority and, as I saw it, were not fit for their positions. An investigation was needed. I hoped to see the guilty parties prosecuted.” He clenched his teeth. “In fact, I was enraged. A guard must be above reproach; a living example of the law.”

Madeleine wondered what had befallen Montmartre’s little ones: the angel-girl and her four brothers in the Midi? His mind flew, as it still often did, to his own sister and her children. He had given his life to save them -- but they were lost anyway, and he would never know their fate.

He swallowed, and tried to arrange his face in a casual way. “You make me curious,” he remarked. “What did the Director say when you went to him?”

“That I was young and bright. That he had heard I handled the prisoners well; that the captain of the guards had said fine things of me; and that if I adapted myself to my surroundings I was sure to rise high. Also, that the man in question had been shot escaping and there would be no investigation. The limits of my authority were made clear to me.” He gazed out the window, which looked over an orchard. In the moonlight the trees stood out in black against the ashy horizon -- scorched hands thrusting out of the ground, straining toward the sky. “He was a weak man, a poor leader. He wanted to take his ease and not put forth the effort to find the truth. Justice meant nothing to him."

"What did you do?"

“I left," Javert snapped, " as there was nothing more to be said." He smiled bitterly. "Anyway, soon enough I heard the story. The prisoner had promised a bribe to one of the senior guards, in exchange for light duty. He had said his family had connections and would make good. But, when the money did not arrive as promised--” He looked away. Madeleine heard what he muttered under his breath; a single word. "Vovet.”

 _Vovet._ Instinctively, Madeleine recoiled and made to spit on the ground, only reining himself in at the last moment. Vovet: a tall man with an air of wealth and confidence. He strode the grounds of the bagne as if were his castle. He kept his stick ready in his hand, his eyes flicking left and right as he sought an arm or head to land it on. The other prisoners obeyed him out of fear, because his brutality was deeper and more dangerous than the ordinary kind. He himself, though, had refused to let Vovet defeat him; as a result the guard had abused him without mercy. Madeleine was not surprised to learn Vovet had had a hand in whatever evil had befallen Montmartre.

He thought again of the man's children -- huddling before a spent fire in the Midi countryside, awaiting their father who would never make parole. He tasted bile. “And now," he said. "You intend to ensure that this Valjean is condemned to this same place. To the justice of Toulon."


	32. Chapter 32

“The justice of Toulon," Madeleine spat. "A place where guards kill innocent men--”

“Let us not stand on ceremony anymore, given what we have come to,” Javert answered. Madeleine caught his breath. His prisoner had transformed, and it had happened in an instant. Suddenly the man's bearing was proud and rigid, his voice as cold as glass. He displayed his handcuffs. “As I am no longer your servant but your prisoner, I claim the freedom to speak plainly. That man, the poacher from the Midi, was no innocent.” 

Despite the red smock and cap, the chained hands, and the length of leather which lashed him to the bedpost, Javert had reverted to his other incarnation: no longer flesh and blood but only the pitiless embodiment of the law. His eyes burned with barely suppressed anger. He could have been standing in the station-house in his proper uniform, holding forth before a subordinate. 

“The man you are determined to pity had committed a crime and deserved his sentence. He then committed another crime: attempted bribery of an official. And true to his nature, even the bribe itself was a lie -- a thieving attempt to get something for nothing. So, no, he was not innocent. His killing was unjust, but it was the man who chose to put himself in the way of death.”

“A bullet put him in the way of death! A bullet from a killer -- a guard who was far worse than the wretches he kept in chains! And now, if your prisoner in Arras meets the same fate -- a poor man who stole from hunger -- do you tell me you won‘t blame yourself for it? You are that heartless, Javert?”

“I obey the law,” Javert spat. “And I will go to Arras and testify -- because it is the law. My hands are clean in this matter. The law is all we have to preserve us.”

“And you still insist that he will find justice in Toulon? Think back to your days there, Javert. Isn’t it true that prison is a monument to abuse and savagery -- that men are starved there, and treated like animals, and worked til they drop, then left to rot? Or beaten, Javert -- isn’t it true? Perhaps I should beat you like that, for your own infraction against me! If I did, would you call it 'justice'?”

“Yes,” Javert snapped.

This answer brought Madeleine up short. He opened his mouth. But no response came to him.

“I have been waiting,” the Inspector said through his teeth, “through all this pointless talk, for you to get on with it. Or have you not the courage for the job?” His lips curved mockingly. “You think a guard’s work is something to be sneered at -- but you yourself have not the stomach to discipline a single prisoner, let alone keep order in a mob of hundreds. Listen: my cudgel is resting by your front door. Go and get it. And then, make me wait no longer. Do what we both know has always been in your heart to do.”

Dread laid hold of Madeleine. _He knows what is in my heart - the blackness of it, the monster I once was, the monster still within me. He knows!_

He thought of the cudgel. He would be reassured to have a weapon in his hand, for suddenly he felt exposed and at a disadvantage, even though the man who confronted him was chained and bound. These past nights, he had allowed himself to forget the danger Javert posed. He had brought Javert here to his own bedroom, believing the man would never harm him. Suddenly he was not so sure.

_So I will get the cudgel. But of course I will not actually raise it against him. I am not that much of a savage. Even though he once beat me nearly to death and still lies about it. Even though he once robbed me of my last hope. But, all right, yes -- I will fetch it. Only because he demands it. I will not strike him, but I will lift it in my hand, just to test the weight of it. I will stand before him armed, while he is helpless; our positions reversed at last. I will have that small measure of revenge._

Madeleine returned with Javert’s cudgel. It had a solid, satisfying feel; it fit his hand well. The man in front of him was still sneering. It was a guard's sneer; one of supremacy and disdain. Madeleine was still uncertain what to say, but the sneer ignited his rage. He turned the cudgel in his hand.

“Good,” snarled Javert. “And now the guard must tie the prisoner correctly. You have left my hands too free; if you swing at me now I will defend myself and disarm you. Instead of the bedpost, you must fix my hands above my head--” and here he glanced upwards toward the suspended beam that ran across the ceiling -- “to that.”

 _Just as I was fixed, that morning at the flogging post,_ thought Madeleine in horror. He was afraid, but Javert’s sneer goaded him on. His head spun and there was a great roaring in his ears. He had wanted this: to be the master, to show Javert what it meant to be in chains. But which of them was master now? 

There was only one way to go forward. Mechanically, like a man being prodded toward the guillotine, he advanced on Javert and did as he was bid.


	33. Toulon

Javert felt a strange mix of dread and exultation as the mayor unbound him from the bedpost. M. Madeleine looked ill and unsure, but Javert was unflinching. He would see it done, the way it must be done, and there was no turning back from it. Justice had come for him at last. 

Resolutely, he raised his arms. The mayor passed the length of leather between his chained wrists and tied it tight. He threw the other end over the beam and yanked it down, hauling Javert's arms straight up, so his shoulders ached and he was forced to rise up on the balls of his feet. Oh, yes. This was very good. It was just as it should be. Crime must be punished and atonement made. He had been waiting for this moment for more than twenty years.

He closed his eyes, and Toulon rushed into him. He smelled the stench of brine and sweat. He felt the punishing windless heat, and his ears pricked to the distant bark of guards and clank of chains and the endless roll of the sea--


End file.
